Real people, behind a real problem.

I was nine years old the first time I wrote a program. An external organization ran a short introductory coding session at my school, and I went home that same day and sat in front of our old desktop computer, typing commands into it until it did what I wanted. I was hooked. It was also the only exposure to programming I got for years. No follow-up class, no mentor, nothing systematic through the rest of my early education. Just one afternoon, and then silence.

I didn't feel the weight of that silence until I got to university and started my computer science classes. I was, more often than not, one of the only women in the room, and even more rarely, the only Black woman. That pattern followed me through school and into my career: female colleagues at the company, but rarely on my own team; no female supervisor or manager I've reported to yet. I kept progressing, but that underrepresentation shaped how I saw the field and what I wanted to do about it.

The Coding Table exists because of both of those experiences at once: a spark that was never followed up on, and a field that stayed harder to belong in than it needed to be, especially for women. I want young people, and especially young girls, to get that first exposure earlier than I did, and to have it continue through: mentorship, resources to keep exploring on their own, and a way back into the room the next time, not just once.