Who is Kat Calvin?
Kat Calvin is the founder of “Black Girls Hack,” the country’s first all-black female hack-a-thon. “Black Girls Hack” gives women of color across the US the opportunity to come together to create code that tackles specific digital challenges and problems. Numerous publications featured her for her dedication to educating young women in the tech field.
Calvin aims to empower young women who look like her and prepare them for a field where women of color are too scarce.
Why is she on theGrio’s 100?
Kat wants women of color to become fluent in the language of coding. The tech savvy Calvin believes getting girls interested in the field at a young age makes them more competitive in the nation’s workforce.
“If you can code, you can find a job, especially like now every single thing is done [online]. Even if you run a brick and mortar [store] selling antique buttons you have to have a website! If you code and you can develop a website you will have a job. Coders and graphic designers at the end of the earth will be the only people who still have jobs,” said Calvin on her website.
What’s next for Calvin?
The inaugural Black Girls Hack event was held in Atlanta in 2012 and was met with huge success. Calvin would love to take the brand national.
“But honestly in five years I would love it if Black Girls Hack was redundant. Part of the reason I started it was because every time I go to a start-up conference or tech conference there’s like three or five of us in a room and just one woman and the rest are dudes and so I would love it if in five years tech conferences are really diverse and there are black women who are really represented and that we are really out there together.” Calvin said in an interview with CocoaFab.com.
As Black Girls Hack begins to gain buzz, the DC based entrepreneur looks to solidify an already successful brand.
Follow Kat Calvin on Twitter at @AGinDC.