PAYPAL HOLDINGS 
Girls in the "Girls in Tech" program, where they learn the basics of coding, at San Jose, Calif., PayPal campus on Tuesday, July 7. Kristen Fortier/PayPal
Charles Cooper
A 12-year-old girl looked up from her computer, puzzled by a code sequence being projected on the classroom wall. "What's the significance of randit again?" asked Tricia Menon.
A girl sitting next to her, Avni Shah, not quite 10, didn't miss a beat. "Random integer," she chimed in.
PayPal engineer Monalisa Patel beamed at the exchange as she continued to lead the class of girls through the finer points of the Python programming language.
The teaching moment, offered through PayPal's "Girls in Tech" program, is part of an ambitious grassroots initiative underway at the company to try to address the lack of women working in the technology industry.
They have their work cut out for them: When it comes to technology and the related fields of science, engineering and math (STEM) - the professions thatinclude some of the highest paying jobs in the country - the percentage of female engineers and scientists in the U.S. is24 % . Similarly low percentages predominate in other regions of the world, according to theUnited Nations .
That reality troubled Rahul Shah, a senior director at PayPal. He decided last year that he wanted to try to disrupt the status quo.
"Left to normal forces, most girls don't wind up in technology because they don't get exposed to tech at an early enough age," said Shah, who learned that most programs introducing girls to technology start with teenagers.
"If you want to influence them, then you've got to reach out when they're between eight and 12," he said.
A plan formed to invite girls onto PayPal's campuses around the world and put them in classroom settings to learn the basics of coding from company engineers. The six-week summer program teaches them various programming languages, such asScratch , a visual drag and drop language developed at MIT, and Python.
The girls spend two-hour sessions on PayPal campuses three times a week during the summers in eight locations including Austin, Omaha, Boston, Salt Lake City and Chennai, India. Courses are planned to start in Dublin and Paris next year.
"It's energy, it's magical," Shah said. "And it's more than just teaching them tech - it's getting them to have fun and to get excited about technology."
Jayashree Sundaresan, who directed PayPal's program inChennai , India, said the students' exposure to the coursework and their interactions on campus had a positive impact on them.
"I can 100% say we were able to impress upon the girls that coding can be fun," Sundaresan said.
Nearly 100 girls are participating in the program this year, but Shah is aiming to go further - including inviting other tech companies to start similar initiatives. PayPal has packaged the curriculum to be easily used by other firms.
Shah said he gets inquiries from current and former PayPal colleagues about the program, wanting to sign their daughters up. "I think we've struck at something that addresses the problem at its core," he said.
Bhupendra Ubeja, a PayPal d irector in San Jose, noticed his daughter Riya was more confident after participating in the course. "The kids last year were asked, `What did you learn?' And they said, `We are leaders.' It's just fantastic. They now talk about their futures."
The UN report echoes that sentiment. In it, researchersfound that girls who took STEM classes tended to grow up to be better-off and helped their communities significantly by introducing new technology, health care and educational opportunities.
The teaching moment, offered through PayPal's "Girls in Tech" program, is part of an ambitious grassroots initiative underway at the company to try to address the lack of women working in the technology industry.
They have their work cut out for them: When it comes to technology and the related fields of science, engineering and math (STEM) - the professions thatinclude some of the highest paying jobs in the country - the percentage of female engineers and scientists in the U.S. is24 % . Similarly low percentages predominate in other regions of the world, according to theUnited Nations .
That reality troubled Rahul Shah, a senior director at PayPal. He decided last year that he wanted to try to disrupt the status quo.
"Left to normal forces, most girls don't wind up in technology because they don't get exposed to tech at an early enough age," said Shah, who learned that most programs introducing girls to technology start with teenagers.
"If you want to influence them, then you've got to reach out when they're between eight and 12," he said.
A plan formed to invite girls onto PayPal's campuses around the world and put them in classroom settings to learn the basics of coding from company engineers. The six-week summer program teaches them various programming languages, such asScratch , a visual drag and drop language developed at MIT, and Python.
The girls spend two-hour sessions on PayPal campuses three times a week during the summers in eight locations including Austin, Omaha, Boston, Salt Lake City and Chennai, India. Courses are planned to start in Dublin and Paris next year.
"It's energy, it's magical," Shah said. "And it's more than just teaching them tech - it's getting them to have fun and to get excited about technology."
Jayashree Sundaresan, who directed PayPal's program inChennai , India, said the students' exposure to the coursework and their interactions on campus had a positive impact on them.
"I can 100% say we were able to impress upon the girls that coding can be fun," Sundaresan said.
Nearly 100 girls are participating in the program this year, but Shah is aiming to go further - including inviting other tech companies to start similar initiatives. PayPal has packaged the curriculum to be easily used by other firms.
Shah said he gets inquiries from current and former PayPal colleagues about the program, wanting to sign their daughters up. "I think we've struck at something that addresses the problem at its core," he said.
Bhupendra Ubeja, a PayPal d irector in San Jose, noticed his daughter Riya was more confident after participating in the course. "The kids last year were asked, `What did you learn?' And they said, `We are leaders.' It's just fantastic. They now talk about their futures."
The UN report echoes that sentiment. In it, researchersfound that girls who took STEM classes tended to grow up to be better-off and helped their communities significantly by introducing new technology, health care and educational opportunities.
PayPal engineer Monalisa Patel teaches girls the basics of coding at San Jose, Calif., PayPal campus on Tuesday, July 7. Kristen Fortier/PayPal
Girls just want to have fun
As Patel peppered the class with a rapid-fire series of questions, the girls, their feet barely reaching the floor from their chairs, responded enthusiastically with a variety of solutions and comments:
"You need to put in the backslash and the comma."
"We need to add parenthesis over there."
"What happens when you run this line but type small `o' instead of capital `O'?"
Patel led them through the paces, patiently talking through the problem until all heads in the classroom nodded in unison.
"It's about teaching them to think and to reason," she later said. "It's about getting them to stretch."
And stretch, they did.
"Yeah, victory!" Tricia exclaimed as she worked out the earlier code problem to her satisfaction. Then she shut down her computer and joined a free-for-all discussion with her friends about the relative merits of Batman, Captain America and Iron Man.
"We're just having fun," she said. "I love to code and there are so many new things that I've learned. It's just cool."
PayPal's Outreach Program offers several initiatives, including Girls in Tech, aimed at getting more girls interested in and learning about technology. For more information on all of its offerings and how you can help, contact Outreach Program ChairAnita Rao.
About the writer: Charles Cooper is a freelance journalist who has written extensively about technology and business for the last three decades. He was most recently the executive news editor at CNET.
For more information on this story, contact the PayPal Newsroom (hyperlink to Newsroom email).
Charles Cooper, Contributing Writer
As Patel peppered the class with a rapid-fire series of questions, the girls, their feet barely reaching the floor from their chairs, responded enthusiastically with a variety of solutions and comments:
"You need to put in the backslash and the comma."
"We need to add parenthesis over there."
"What happens when you run this line but type small `o' instead of capital `O'?"
Patel led them through the paces, patiently talking through the problem until all heads in the classroom nodded in unison.
"It's about teaching them to think and to reason," she later said. "It's about getting them to stretch."
And stretch, they did.
"Yeah, victory!" Tricia exclaimed as she worked out the earlier code problem to her satisfaction. Then she shut down her computer and joined a free-for-all discussion with her friends about the relative merits of Batman, Captain America and Iron Man.
"We're just having fun," she said. "I love to code and there are so many new things that I've learned. It's just cool."
PayPal's Outreach Program offers several initiatives, including Girls in Tech, aimed at getting more girls interested in and learning about technology. For more information on all of its offerings and how you can help, contact Outreach Program ChairAnita Rao.
About the writer: Charles Cooper is a freelance journalist who has written extensively about technology and business for the last three decades. He was most recently the executive news editor at CNET.
For more information on this story, contact the PayPal Newsroom (hyperlink to Newsroom email).
Charles Cooper, Contributing Writer
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