Before founding the highly acclaimed social enterprise, Code Like a Girl, Ally Watson spent the first 8 years of her career as a software engineer. Despite her love for the field, she often experienced first-hand the isolation and barriers associated with being a woman in a male-dominated industry.
Code Like a Girl was born out of Ally’s desire to meet like-minded women who code. She hosted a casual meetup and was overwhelmed by the response. She quickly saw the opportunity to positively impact the lives of many women who code. Ally never approached it with the intention of finding “the next big thing”. She only knew that there was a need and she could fill it.
What started as a supportive networking meet-up quickly grew into an education startup that is having a measurable impact on tech’s gender imbalance. The rapid growth of the organisation is greatly attributed to Ally’s authentic vision and contagious passion for the challengethat lies ahead of our industry.
In her own right, Ally has become a valued voice and thought-leader for diversity in tech. When she’s not supporting her team at a code camp or networking event, Ally is workshopping a new deliverable with her exec team or jetting around the globe to compel others to share her vision for equal representation in Technology. Her schedule is absolutely chockers. But because Ally truly believes you can’t be what you can’t see, she stillf inds time to speak at her local primary school about the jobs of tomorrow and to demonstrate to the next generation that the face of success is a diverse one.
