Nonprofit Aims To Give Black Girls A 'Fighting Chance' To Succeed In Tech Industry

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - Just three percent of computing-related jobs are held by African-American women, according to the National Center For Women and Information Technology. But a woman in Nebraska is determined to change that statistic.

Tiffany Gamble is the founder of Emerging Ladies Academy, a nonprofit in north Omaha focused on empowering black girls in technology.

"We need to stop being users of technology and be creators and innovators in that space," she says.

Gamble, who has more than 20 years of experience in human and social services, did not start out with a technology background. But she saw a need, and in January 2017, had an epiphany to get into the tech and nonprofit field.

"Black women face a double barrier in technology due to racism and sexism," she told CBS affiliate KMTV. "I wanted to make sure that these girls had a fighting chance to be able to succeed in our tech industry at this point."

Gamble taught herself how to build a website and immersed herself in the coding world. She also worked with IT professionals at Metropolitan Community College to help develop her after school programming, community workshops and her SHE CODE coding course.

"We have web development 1, web development 2, and then we move into mobile apps so they know a little bit about how to create a web page," she says. "They have a project at the end. They know how to create a website. We provide a domain for them and web hosting, all of that is done and they create a website and they create a mobile app."

Gamble's mission is to immerse the girls into as many technology experiences as possible.

"Technology is not an industry, it is the industry," she says. "So I try to use every day experiences to really show them where the future is at now, so they can start thinking about what career path am I going to go into or what business am I going to build."

Gamble hopes that her community becomes a hub for future tech female tech leaders.

"For me it's just vital that we have something in north Omaha to show them that hey this is what tech looks like, re-imagining tech, it's not a guy in a dark space with a hood on tapping away at a computer. It's vast. It's broad, it is big, opportunities are endless, especially when we have so many jobs that are unfulfilled in this space," she says.