Coding a Better World

By the Tech & Startup Leaders Editorial Team | March 2026 In
the rapidly evolving landscape of global technology, where lines
of code are reshaping industries and algorithms are reordering
economies, one question has grown increasingly urgent: who
gets to build the digital future? For Reshma Saujani, the answer

has always been clear—everyone. As a trailblazing entrepre-
neur, fearless activist, and the founder of Girls Who Code, Sau-
jani has spent more than a decade ensuring that millions of girls

and women who might otherwise have been left on the wrong
side of the digital divide have the tools, skills, and confidence to

Build it alongside everyone else. Her journey from the court-
rooms of New York to the corridors of power in Washington D.C.

and the code labs of America’s most underserved communities
is one of the most compelling and consequential entrepreneurial
stories of our time.

From Law to Leadership: The Making of a Movement

Born to immigrant parents who fled Uganda during Idi Amin’s
brutal regime and rebuilt their lives in illinois with extraordinary
resolve, Reshma Saujani’s earliest lessons in resilience were
learned at the family dinner table. She pursued law at Yale, built
a successful career in finance and public service, and
In 2010, she made history as the first Indian-American woman to run

for United States Congress—a campaign that proved trans-
formative in every sense beyond the ballot box. It was during

that campaign, visiting public schools across New York City, that
Saujani encountered the insight that would reshape

her entire professional trajectory. She walked into the computer.

sci-ence classrooms and noticed, with growing urgency,

that almost every student seated at those screens was a boy.

Girls were systematically absent from the rooms where the digital

future was being built—and she decided, with characteristic

immediacy, to do something about it. In 2012, she founded

Girls Who Code with a mission as straightforward as it was audacious:

close the gender gap in technology, one girl at a time.

Girls Who Code: An Organisation That Changed the
Equation

What Reshma Saujani built with Girls Who Code is nothing
short of a social and technological phenomenon. Beginning with
a single summer programme serving just 20 girls in New York
City, the organisation has grown into a global movement that
has reached over 500,000 girls and young women across
all 50 U.S. states and more than 60 countries worldwide. It’s
programs—spanning after-school clubs, summer immersion
experiences, college and career pathways, and a robust alumni
network—provide young women with not just technical skills in
coding, artificial intelligence, and software development, but the
confidence, community, and professional connections to turn

those skills into lasting careers. Girls Who Code alumni pursue

computer science and related fields at a rate 15 times the na-
tional average, and they are entering the technology workforce

“Bravery, not perfection,
is what drives real change.”
— Reshma Saujani, Founder,
Girls Who Code

in numbers that are genuinely beginning to shift the industry’s
demographic composition. Corporate partners including Google,
Microsoft, Amazon, and AT&T have invested in the programme’s
expansion, recognising that Girls Who Code is not merely a

charity. It is a talent pipeline for the future of the global economy.
my.

Beyond the Classroom: Advocacy, Policy, and the
Bigger Picture

Reshma Saujani’s impact extends far beyond the Girls Who
Code curriculum. As a policy advocate, she has brought the

cause of women in technology to Capitol Hill, the World Eco-
nomic Forum, and the boardrooms of America’s most powerful

corporations, making the economic case for gender diversity in
tech with the precision of a lawyer and the passion of a founder
who has seen, first-hand, what is at stake. Her Marshall Plan
for Moms — launched during the pandemic to address the
disproportionate economic burden borne by working mothers —
demonstrated her capacity to identify systemic challenges and
mobilise public conversation around transformative solutions.
Through her writing, speaking, and advocacy, Saujani has consistently

connected the dots between individual empower-ment and structural

change—understanding that truly closing the gender gap in technology

requires not just teaching girls to code, but building the cultural,

policy, and economic conditions in which the women those girls

become fully and sustainably thriving.

Conclusion: The Future of Tech Is Being Written by
the Brave

The digital world of tomorrow is being built today — and thanks
in no small part to Reshma Saujani’s extraordinary work, an
An ever-growing number of the people building it are women. Girls
Who Code alumni are shipping products at Amazon, leading AI
research at Google, founding startups that are attracting venture
capital, and stepping into the technical leadership roles that
will define how artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and the next
generation of the internet will develop over the coming decades.

The gender gap in tech is far from closed—but for the first time in
the industry’s history, the trajectory is unmistakably in the right

direction. direction. And at the heart of that trajectory is a woman

who looked at a room full of boys at a computer screen, refused to accept

what she saw as inevitable, and decided—bravely, imperfectly,

unstoppably—to change it. The future of technology is inclusive, and

Reshma Saujani is one of the most powerful reasons why.