As a little girl growing up in the Deep South, my mother told me that my future lay in my education. And she was right.

Our camps and workshops offer a space where girls of color can learn computer science and coding principles alongside their peers, with mentorship from female role models who have established themselves in tech fields where women, and minority women in particular, tend to be underrepresented.

Gender is not central to coding.

It's critical for girls to see role models like myself that are in technical fields. Looking for ways to come in as speakers or do a career day, or just find a way to connect with students or invite students to their workplaces to shadow them for the day... is critically important.

We taught ourselves to simulate how microprocessors work using DEC computers so we could develop software even before our machine was built.

Most kids at 10 or 11 love science, but I never outgrew it.

I am the parent of teenagers, my daughters are 13 and 15, so the issue of Internet safety has been an important issue. I have been visiting middle schools to talk about some of the challenges that they face.

Authoritarian systems evolve. Authoritarianism in the Internet Age is not your old Cold War authoritarianism.