Victoria’s Secret model, Karlie Kloss is one of the most famous and highest paid models in the world, but modelling isn’t her only skill. As well as mastering her runway walk, Karlie Kloss is eager to close the gender gap in technology and encourage women to become tech professionals.
After making headlines in 2015 with announcing she could code, Karlie decided to open her own coding camp – Kode with Klossy in May 2016. The camp was designed to utilise a poorly-supported group of potential employees in an industry that has a widening gap of unfilled jobs. She believes “the technological literacy of women ensures that they will be in a strong position in the society of the future”.
Kode with Klossy has created two training programmes to target women of all ages and lifestyles. There is a two week summer camp scholarship for girls 13-18 years old and a nine month career scholarship. Both of which are designed for women at any level of experience, or even none!
Applications have now opened for the career scholarship and each month there will be a lucky winner who will receive free access to a nine month coding class with an estimated value of $12,000.
Kloss first found interest in coding when she became interested in how her favourite apps such as Instagram worked. She signed up for a coding class at the Flatiron School where she began learning basic coding such as Ruby on Rails. She then became eager to break the stereotype that coding is ‘just for boys’ by creating Kode with Klossy. Karlie says “there’s a big misconception that coding is strictly mathematical; it’s actually incredibly creative. Code runs everything around us, and young women are so important to defining the future”.
Kloss isn’t the first to create a female coding programme as there are already many out there trying to encourage girls to code. However, it makes a huge difference that this one has a supermodel mascot to demolish all stereotypes and inspire all types of females to join the trend.
Photo credit: Karlie Kloss
