As the American fashion model Karlie Kloss celebrates her 28th birthday, we’d like to congrats her as a role model, inspiring and empowering young girls through her coding camp Kode With Klossy.
Karlie Kloss; model and science nerd
One of the best-known faces in fashion, the stylish Karlie Kloss says she is also a math and science nerd. Being curious to understand how Instagram and other apps worked, she took her first coding course in 2014 and discovered she loved to code. “It opened my eyes to the power of code and all the ways this very technical language can be used in very creative ways.” She adds, “Women who have these skills have the power to shape our future. Now, more than ever, women need to have a seat at the table in shaping the technologies that are shaping our world.”
Why Karlie launched a coding camp
Karlie Kloss decided to found the coding camp Kode With Klossy when she noticed that women earned only 18% of the undergraduate computer science degrees and that most public schools in the USA do not offer computer science courses. In 2015, for example, only 25% of the computing workforce were women.
Kode with Klossy is a two-week summer course aimed at girls between 15 and 18 years old. With her coding camps, Kloss hopes to help close the gap of gender disparity in technology. The result is inspiring, of all the girls who’ve taken the course, 90% chose to pursue opportunities in computer science.
Kode With Klossy gives superpowers
The successful fashion supermodel (she was on Forbe’s highest-paid model list in 2014) wants to give girls superpowers. With 8.7m followers on Instagram, Karlie Kloss often takes the social media platform to promote her coding camp. By offering the free summer course, she wants to increase women’s confidence. Additionally, Kloss aims to inspire them to pursue their passions in a technology-driven world. Anyone can apply for a scholarship at Kode With Klossy.
From supermodel to role model
In the past five years, Kode With Klossy has grown and expanded across 25 cities. Thousands of girls have had the opportunity to learn how to code. We think Karlie Kloss is much more than a supermodel; she is a role model helping to shape a better world. Congratulations!
Have a look at what some of the young women who went to the summer coding camp have achieved so far:
And here you can read another inspiring story of a young woman using her celebrity status to change the world into a better place.
Title photo @kodewithklossy