VOA慢速英語(yǔ):Growing Girls Who Code

[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.53]this is the Technology Report in Special English. [00:07.37]American colleges and universities awarded about [00:13.12]one million seven hundred thousand bachelor's degrees [00:17.12]in the school year ending in twenty ten. [00:21.38]Fifty-seven percent of the recipients were female. [00:26.30]Yet only eighteen percent of the women [00:29.92]earned degrees in computer and information sciences. [00:34.23]Reshma Saujani would like to change that. [00:37.44]She launched an organization called [00:40.40]"Girls Who Code" in two thousand eleven. [00:44.01]Her goal is to get more girls interested [00:47.36]in science and technology. [00:50.63]"It's predicted that we'll have about [00:51.95]one point four million jobs [00:53.21]that are open in the next twenty years [00:55.60]in the science and technology related fields. [00:58.26]But, only twenty-nine percent of Americans today [01:01.05]have the skills to actually fill those jobs. [01:03.92]And many of those Americans are men. [01:06.40]And less than twenty percent of women [01:08.85]are actually going into the technology [01:10.37]and science related professions. [01:12.37]And so we have an enormous gap." [01:15.42]And she says the underrepresentation of women [01:19.78]in the fields of science, technology, [01:22.22]engineering and mathematics, also known as STEM, [01:26.45]is caused by a bigger societal issue. [01:30.12]"Girls and boys perform about the same in math and science. [01:33.35]So there's not an aptitude issue." [01:34.82]Reshma Saujani says we live in a society that sends messages [01:39.72]that girls should avoid these fields of study. [01:43.07]"I can still go to Forever 21 and buy a t-shirt [01:46.24]that says ‘a(chǎn)llergic to algebra.' [01:47.78]We still have that Barbie that would say that she hated math. [01:50.81]And we still have this kind of cultural stereotype [01:53.85]that a computer scientist or a programmer [01:56.53]is kind of like a dorky, young white guy." [01:59.35]"Girls Who Code" has partnered with educators, [02:02.34]engineers and business people. [02:05.42]Twenty girls took part in the group's first eight-week program [02:10.06]last summer in New York City. [02:12.71]They learned how to build websites and mobile apps, [02:17.06]and create business plans. [02:19.36]"We took girls on field trips to the NYPD, to Facebook, to Twitter. [02:24.06]And we showed them how technology is a part of every, every industry. [02:29.25]Whether it's fashion, whether it's medicine. [02:32.04]And that you can really use technology to really change the world." [02:35.84]Ms. Saujani says companies have been very supportive of the group. [02:40.77]"The private sector really understands [02:43.06]that they have an enormous pipeline problem. [02:44.90]We have a huge shortage of engineers. [02:46.94]And they invest in "Girls Who Code" to really grow that pipeline." [02:51.17]Google was the first business to invest in the group. [02:55.17]Reshma Saujani says if not for Google, [02:58.27]"Girls Who Code" would not exist. [03:01.31]Twitter, General Electric, eBay and others have also provided support. [03:08.64]Ms. Saujani says the program has been extremely successful. [03:14.09]She says all the girls who took part in its first group [03:18.88]plan to continue their STEM training. [03:21.12]And, she says, "Girls Who Code" hopes to train many more. [03:26.79]"If our goal at "Girls Who Code" is to really close the STEM gap, [03:30.51]we realize that we have to teach two million girls [03:33.22]how to code in the next twenty years."

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