Welcome to the CNN. It's our show about ordinary people building extraordinary communities. I'm your host, Bailey Richardson. I'm a partner at People Owned Company and a co-author of Get Together How to Build a Community with Your People. I'm Kevin Quinn, Bailey's co-host today and also partner at People and Company, our Community Building Strategy Company. I love Baby Company, four years old now. Why are you so baby, when you're for the toddler company that taught you?

Or is it like the company years are different than other years, kind of like dog years or like time seven.

I think our friends, Kirk and Randy, didn't they say, like, if you can make it through one year, you can make it through three years and if you can make it through three years, it makes you like a thousand, OK?

All right. It's over a thousand years old. And each episode of this podcast, we interview everyday people who have built extraordinary communities about just how they did it. How did they get the first people to show up? How did they grow to hundreds, thousands more members? Today, we are talking to ISIS Miller. She's the community events manager at Black Girls Code. What's up, ISIS?

ISIS now throughout Kimberly Bryant's biotech engineering career that Kimberly is the founder of Black Girls Code.

She was often the only black female in the room. I didn't have any role models, as she put it. Kimberly's experience wasn't rare. It's the norm. Black women make up less than point five percent of leadership roles in tech point five percent, as Kimberly watched her young daughter Chi grow up with budding interest in gaming and coding but having no spaces to explore or develop her interests alongside people that looked like her. Kemberly like a dad mom decided to step in and take charge.

Kimberly and her colleagues at Genentech put together a six week coding curriculum for Girls of Color in 2011, conducting the first educational series in a basement of a college prep in San Francisco, which was loaned to Kimberly for free. She expected about six students to show up, but got double that about a dozen girls. And today, that first core set for seedling of an idea has evolved into Black Girls Code, a nonprofit organization that provides technology education to young women of color and offers them the peers and role models that the Kimberly Bryants of the world have traditionally lacked.

In a few years, Black Girls Code has transformed from that basement experiment into a global nonprofit with about 15 chapters supported by volunteers. ISIS joined the Black Girls Code Headquarters team early this year just before covid-19 struck. Today, we're going to talk to her about how Black Girls Code has gone virtual with online workshops and career panels that reach out to a thousand or more students per week. We're also going to discuss what a meaningful partnership with Black Girls Code needs and why their work is so special to ISIS.

Personally, Kev, what did you take away from our wonderful conversation with ISIS today?

Well, first off, thanks to ISIS for taking the time to speak with us, the interview was both personal and inspiring.

At one point, we talk a bit about what the girls and parents get out of participating in the Black Girls Code community. Why do they come together? And this question of why what's the purpose of the community is such an important existential question. When you're building any community and it's not easy to answer, your answers might shift over time. My summary of what ISIS shared is that the learning component of Black Girls Code, you know, learning to code, learn to use technology is the tip of the iceberg for why girls and parents participate.

They also participate because it's a space for girls to be inspired, to be motivated to experience their potential and many other things. So as a community builder, you know, if you at least start to have hunches like this, hunches around what makes this community valuable, you're better able to develop activities and programs that drive that core value and purpose home for community members.

Just don't believe that it's something good and magical. But trying to piece it apart like ISIS has started to communicate with us is so important to building a community intentionally. As we like to say, you got to know your who and your wife before you start planning your one, you know, I'm saying, OK, well, let's let ISIS tell us the story now so we jump in and do it. All right, ISIS, welcome to the podcast or stoked to have you.

I love to kick off every interview that we do. Talk about how you just can't fake the funk. As we like to say, when you're organizing a community, when you're shepherding a group of people, often the leaders of these communities really personally care about that group's mission or purpose themselves. So we're curious just to bring your story to life for the audience. Can you share a bit more about your background and why you ended up at Black Girls Code?

Sure, I would love to. You can't fake the funk and community work is something that has been in my life for a very long time. I'm actually originally from Miami and I was always sort of a community organizer, even when nobody asked me to them when I was working at like I was working at a coffee shop before and everyone knew my name. And that was really because I spent so much time getting to know the people and helping the people get to know each other.

I was sort of that connector and honestly, just doing events in the community, not only at that coffee shop, but just finding things that if they didn't exist already in the community, I created it. And so I got to host a ton of incredible events and bring just give a platform for other artists and creators who just needed a voice and had something to say. So that's really always been something that I've been passionate about, as well as working with other grassroots organizations like Dream Defenders and working on behalf of the rights of those who society has sort of ignored and left behind.

And I'm a black woman, so I can't really the personal is political and I can't separate my identity from just the way the way that I work in the world. And so it really is just a pleasure to be able to work with Black Girls Code as a black woman who understands what it's like to to be left behind, to be ignored, to be overlooked, and to not have the resources and the advantages that it takes to truly succeed. So that's sort of where I'm at now.

I've been with the organization now for five months. I'm fairly new to the team. But it's it's just it's I can't say enough of how much of an honor it is to be able to work for these girls who now have the opportunity or we're able to provide an opportunity to to show them what's possible for them. And that at the end of the day is extraordinary. It's why I wake up every day.

I had the good fortune of talking to you before the interview. And one of the things that you said to me was just that you were kind of a young kid who dreamed about space, maybe was a little bit of I don't know if nerd is the word, but the word or the word.

And we're talking a little bit about how even like going into computer science wasn't something that people talk to you about as a possibility. You mind sharing a little bit about that and that story from your own words?

Yeah, I mean, my mother is a librarian. I grew up around books. I've always just loved to read. I love space. My dad is a Trekkie. So I was I really never had a chance. Like I was bound to be a nerd. There was no other way.

But they were also from the Deep South and they're older. My parents are in their 70s and they didn't have the educational opportunities that I'm able and afforded in that our generation has seen. And so I don't think they really even knew how to propel me or to push me towards the things that I was interested in, because they themselves didn't have models for what that could look like. They didn't go to college. They they were sharecroppers. So, yes, I was so interested in space.

But did I actually think that I could have a career in it? In a way. I mean, I dreamed big because I read books, but I didn't know what was possible computer science. And I mean, that was just far out of reach from what I thought a little black girl could do. And so that being a part of an organization that changes that is is extremely important. I mean, I think we joked about this earlier valy we we were coding in the MySpace days.

Right.

We have these I remember my MySpace page and like being so committed to do to put in these codes that will personalize your page so that your favorite songs would appear in the layout that you wanted would appear. And I had no idea that that was coding and that that was entire language and that there was a whole career path that I could go on just based on something that I thought was just fun. That's where Black Girls Code comes into play. We nurture the girls interest that they're already excited about and we show them exactly what they can do with those things.

I appreciate you sharing that.

I'm glad that we all know. You are a nerd and have a visual of you and your family as we hear your voice in this podcast, have links on MySpace pages and person.

Oh my God, the money I would pay to get my old MySpace login, I just so listen to that.

And their ears are going to perk up. You better watch out. So Black Girls Code started nine years ago in is like a twinkle in the eye of Kimberly Bryant, who is an electrical engineer, a black woman worked at Genentech and a bunch of other rad places in the biotech field. And what what was it sounds like maybe similar to what you've talked about with your own life story, but how do you describe sort of the problem that Kimberly wanted to solve with Black Girls Code by starting this organization, what was missing in the world?

And what is Black Girls Code doing as an organization to fill that gap? The reason it started was, yes, there's a larger goal and there's a larger problem that we were hoping to solve. But it was personal for her as as like you said, she has a strong engineering background, but her daughter actually was the one that that was interested. She wanted to go down a similar path as her mom, and she was super interested in engineering.

And so when Kimberly wanted to expose her to more workshops and ways that she can get involved with these skills, she noticed pretty quickly that there were no students or instructors who looked like her daughter. And that can oftentimes be a barrier for people. If you don't see other people that look like you doing that thing, then it can very easily discourage you. And so that, of course, lends itself to a much larger issue. We know we know the problem.

We've seen it. We understand that the tech field is so heavily white, male dominated. I mean, we can talk about the numbers as well. The STEM employment gap is further compounded by persistent diversity challenges as women and minorities comprise 70 percent of college students, but less than forty five percent of the actual STEM degrees. I mean, we can even get a little bit more granular than that when it comes down to where they started at an early age, over 50 percent of middle school girls are interested in computer science, but by high school, fewer than two percent plan to actually major in.

And I think, again, a lot of that is around representation. When you look at the actual degrees for computer science, only 18 percent of women are earning those degrees within that 18 percent. Only three percent of them are black women. Damn, yeah, those numbers are dismal. And that's why we want to get these kids at an early age. Our programs are geared towards age of seven to 17 because we recognize we have to start nurturing that and showing them again what's possible for them as soon as we can.

The four things that we really focus on in our program are web design, robotics, mobile development and game development. Prie covid-19. We were able to be very hands on and had a lot of hands on workshops and field trips for our girls. But more than that, it's really about providing them with mentorship as well and being in a culturally sensitive environment where people understand their background, understand their experiences, understand their needs. I mean, yes, we talk about we want to give them these hard skills that they're going to be able to use.

But more than that, we also want to foster and a foundation for the whole girl. We talk about the girl as a whole person, not just her needs and stem, but who is her community or her parents, what is what are her other struggles that we can also seek to address, that we can also support her on because those those things can't be extracted from her identity either. Do you know anything about, like, the first effort that Kimberly put in for her daughter?

Was there one workshop or was she dreaming big from the very beginning of I'm going to make this an organization, we're going to have chapters all around the world. Do you have any idea about the very earliest days of Black Girls Code? When the company was founded almost 10 years ago now, it was just in a basement in San Francisco with six computers and eight girls sharing these computers. So it was just a small thing of like it was community.

It's always been community based. It's always been about what we can do for here and the effort and the energy and the momentum behind it just grew of its own creation. And now she's dreaming much bigger. And we all are dreaming bigger. I mean, our our goal and our mission is to teach one million girls these skills by 20, 40. So we have a lot of work to do, but I absolutely think it's one hundred percent possible.

Here we are now with over twenty thousand girls serve guys have chapters in other countries as well. This isn't just in the United States, is that right?

That's right. So we have 15 chapters now and we've actually gone international. We have one chapter abroad, and that's in Johannesburg, South Africa. But it's Kimberly's dream to to really launch worldwide. And we're certainly we're certainly on our way. But you can find Black Girls Code chapters, New York, Chicago, L.A., Washington, Dallas, Miami, Houston, Detroit. And we've gotten so many offers from people and people who want to see us in their city.

So I imagine that Black Girls Code is going to be global in no time. And now a note from our sponsor, our own small but mighty biz people and company building a community is powerful, harnessing sincere passion towards a common goal.

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Now back to the show. Tell me about the key roles for members of the Black Girls Code community. We have the girls. We have their parents, as you describe volunteers. But can you break down who makes black girls code come to life and what what they do to support these girls?

Oh, my gosh. Well, who makes black girls? Everyone.

I think we have our team of that. Our employees. Right. And we're at the epicenter of sort of the work that gets done. But like you said, we have our parents. And without our parents, our girls wouldn't be able to do the work that they're doing. We have our core team, our core team members. So our core team members are actually volunteers that are based and each one of our chapters and they actually run our Black Girls Code programs without our core team, which are volunteers who are taking time out of their their busy schedules to be with our girls, to put on these programs, to teach them the skills we would not be able to do so.

Our core team members are just invaluable to their kind of the volunteers organizing the local volunteers. Exactly, exactly.

I mean, as much as we would love to be in every city we can, so we very much heavily rely on our core team members to volunteer and work with our girls. Aside from that, we have a ton of incredible corporate partners that we work with who donate to us, who donate equipment, who donate time in volunteering, donate money to help us stay prosperous and afloat, and to be able to keep serving our girls. We have folks at the nonmonetary center partner with us on incredible events that we hosted.

We have people reaching out by the boatloads, wanting to work with us and spreading our mission. Just the people who are just sharing our content on social media, encouraging other students to sign up and work with us like we have a huge ecosystem. And every single person in that ecosystem absolutely matters. And even in the wake of everything that's going on right now, we've obviously received a ton of folks reaching out and wanting to partner with us. And we've seen the most creative things that people have done in order to support our mission.

We've seen kids hosting their own lemonade stands to raise money for black girls, melt my heart and Americana, bring it on.

We've seen this wonderful family. They donated their son's first birthday to Black Girls Code. So in lieu of giving the kid gifts they want, it's all wonderful. We have the voice of the character who plays bubbles for the Powerpuff Girls, but how cool is that? So you could hire her to, let's say, like, wish someone a happy birthday or something like that. She would do a recording and you would pay her and all of the money would go to black girls.

So people have really found just the most ingenious, creative, adorable ways to to be a part of our ecosystem and to support the work that we do. And it's it's been humbling, truly. You've brought up the parents a number of times. Can you just tell me what kind of parents raised their hands to be a part of Black Girls Code? What do they come to Black Girls Code for? They seem like such important parts of the mission.

And can you tell us more about who these parents are and how you work with them?

Well, first, I want to I want to check myself and I want to always use the most inclusive language possible and sometimes just the guardians or the community that surrounds these girls. So just the the kinds of the kinds of guardians that come to us wanting to partner are just folks who want to see these girls thrive. I mean, they're they're not always we have this vision of it's always mom, right? It's it's not it's aunts, uncles, granddad's fathers who understand that these girls have an innate talent.

They have an innate curiosity. And it's also because they know that we're also going to help them with their self-esteem. And when I tell you that imposter syndrome is real, is so real and especially real for people of color, especially women and black women. And so knowing what it's like to be in the world as a black woman, they don't they don't want their girls to go through that. And so they come to us knowing that not only will they gain these skills, but they'll also find mentors, they'll find community.

They find other girls who are also friends, right. Friends. They find other notes.

It can feel isolating. Right. Like it can feel like, oh, I'm the only one interested in doing this thing that everyone thinks is weird or nerdy or geeky or whatever. And there might be a stigma around that. And so they come knowing that their girls are going to get community, they're going to get support, they're going to get mentorship and they're going to be shown again. What's possible. I can't say that. I know I keep repeating that sentence, but it just it resonates with me so much.

And that's what they're hoping to get. And that's what we hope to provide. And that's what we strive. It goes beyond like maybe on the surface level, there's like a learning and a skill development aspect to Black Girls Code, but as you're saying, there are these all these other elements to what what the community members contribute and get out of participating from sort of the emotional support and the sense of identity and the Kurds that's being built. Learning a skill development might be like the tip of the iceberg, but there's so much more.

Oh, yeah, and I think the parents themselves find support, so it's not just about the girls who are who are finding community there, but the parents find community or guardians. They also can come in and say, well, maybe they don't have the tech skills, but they can talk to other parents about how they're engaging with these students at home so they, too, can get these skills to be able to further the education once they've left our workshops.

So they're meeting each other, they're making friends and they're finding their people as well. And we're building out even more services that help the community that surrounds these girls with more wellness activities, more panels that engage with the parents and guardians in the communities around these girls. So it's not just about them. If we don't nurture their ecosystems, then we can't even get to them.

I want to ask you about your personal experience working at Black Girls Code two, because you haven't been there for very long. You probably came in with some really clear priorities and a lot of energy and momentum and then a global pandemic struck. And so I'm curious, how has that been for you and how are you managing leading an organization that usually has thousands of people meeting up in person and trying to continue to offer that support, that visibility to young girls and to parents and guardians in the time when we can't meet in person?

How have you been managing that? Oh, I won't lie. It's quite a challenge when I first got hired for this role, I was just so stoked. I mean, I couldn't have been more excited to be hands on with these girls and just meeting them and being inspired by them and hug them. And just that was what I was most excited about, is really being able to engage with the girls. And then, you know, my dreams were quickly dashed.

I had to really pivot. We all did. The entire organization had to pivot on a dime. I mean, he'd always I think we'd always sort of talked about making more offerings for virtual experiences, but we had to do it quickly. And so that really changed my role in community. So we talk about community a lot. It's implied that we're in person and we're talking to each other when we gaja and we weren't able to do that. And so I had to really try to think outside the box of what it means to build community.

To be honest with you, we're still I'm still figuring that out. We've done an amazing job. Right? We have our Techne series that is a monthly series where we offer one on one of coding game development, robotics, things like that. And we've had thousands and thousands of folks register and participate in those things. One of the cool things that I've learned about engaging in that way is and this is going to sound very simple, but when you're on the Zoome platform, making sure that you can see the girls, that's one thing that has been so essential.

And Kimberly talks about a lot is keeping the cameras on because there's something about being in these workshops and being able to see a couple hundred little girls and and all working so hard and and being truly engaged. So and they can see each other. So while they may not be in the same room, they can at least see other girls that look like them who are doing the same thing at the same time and being excited about it again. So we've also hosted a number of events and panels, one most recently that I hosted.

It was a day of healing. So we celebrated Juneteenth by hosting a day of healing with two of my favorite poets, not the Hoj and Osmani, and it was led and facilitated by Autumn Brown. We had this this really powerful moment. And that wasn't actually for the kids. It was it was for the adults in the room. We really wanted to honor their experiences and what we were all going through at a time that was. That I still don't have words for that.

We're still living through, and so we took a moment to to honor Joy. There's been so much grief and we leave. Of course, there's there's there's importance in that. There's an importance for leaving room to to grieve. We're all grieving and a lot of ways. And so this this particular event was around joy and coming together to not only celebrate joy and uplift that, but to also talk about trauma and how we move forward. And so we had we open it up with our poets and then we ended it with a session that was facilitated by Autumn Brown, where we really unpack trauma, what it feels like and how we can move forward.

And so these are the sort of ways that we've been thinking about community. It's really about assessing what time are we living in, what are the community's needs and how can we best serve them. And so that's sort of been my thought process. And programming events is is not just, again, focusing on girls. Yes, they will always be our primary focus. But how do we give support to to to those who are supporting them? And that that's been it's been truly rewarding.

We've had so much great feedback from the people who participated in our Day of Healing, who have thanked us for doing that and for sort of stepping outside of what we would normally do. And we're all innovating right now. I haven't I can't sit here and say I am I am just the captain of community. I know everything about it. No, because that we're all having to reshape and relearn and unlearn and innovate. And I am in a very interesting time in my career where this is my challenge.

One thing that we see a lot of communities having to do at this time is really listen and understand like what is the purpose of this community in my community members lives right now, given what's going on in the world, which, you know, not only are we looking at a pandemic, but, you know, I want to hold space and acknowledge that there have been things that have been happening in the United States, people coming out to protest and demand systemic changes to a system of white supremacy and anti blackness that's been around for a very long time.

So the community you're managing, the community you're supporting, is dealing with two seismic heavy experiences at once. And it sounds like black girls code is always in some ways been maybe primarily for skill development, but really secondarily, they're for inspiration and emotional support. And what I hear and what you're saying is you're finding new ways to provide that secondary support, emotional support, inspiration through online tools that, you know, before it kind of happened, happened in person through magic of friendships and things like that.

So I'm hearing I'm hearing you really listen to what people need and address the services that you offer people based on the constraints that you have.

That should be the goal is always listen, that's what I've been trying to do in my role. And that's what we've been doing as an organization is really trying to understand, said the needs of our community. And it's a heavy moment for all of us. And we do hold space for that. And we also know that there is a tomorrow and we want to be able to prepare our girls and our community for what that tomorrow looks like and not only prepare them for it, but make sure that they have a hand in building it.

But the light at the end of the tunnel is knowing that tomorrow will come and our girls are going to be ready for it.

That's the Treki in your blood.

I think I can feel it that I very I'm always thinking about the future and how we can how we can shape that and maybe get off this planet.

But that's one thing I've also been excited to talk to you about today, is it's it seems like there's a lot of folks who are interested in partnering with Black Girls Code, and that's been true for a long time and maybe even more so now, just given the events that are happening in the world and the focus the world has right now. But for a long time, Black Girls Code has had a really high standard around who you partner with and why.

And I'm curious for the folks listening, if you would share, what does it look like to be a good partner in the eyes of Black Girls Code? So first, I want to say how truly grateful we are for the outpouring of support, and I just want to lead with that gratitude because the outpouring has been humbling and overwhelming. But to your question, first and foremost, before you reach out to an organization, look at your own organization name before you start writing checks to us or to anyone.

And trust me, we still want the checks and so them. But what I mean, when you look at the work that you can do at home, right? I mean, my mom has this saying is sleep around your own front door before you try to really look at what you can do in your own organization for the people of color and the black people working in your own organization. First, how can you support them? I want to to challenge people to to look at their internally first.

What what is your C suite look like? What are the opportunities that you're creating for upward mobility for other black people in your own organizations? That's first and foremost. If you're not doing that work to to teach yourself and to listen, you should be listening to your black employees who have been talking about these problems for years, make space to listen and have hard conversations with them first. Because if you're not doing that work, no matter the checks you write, that's not going to make much of a difference, at least in my eyes, to partner with us.

We would love to work with most most, but what we want to see is that it's not just, hey, we wrote this check, right? I mean, yes, we're super grateful. But what we really love to see is folks who are saying, how can we partner with you long term? How let's start a relationship. That's the kind of partner that we would love to have. Maybe it's a monthly donation. That's great. But more than that, how can we work with your community?

Maybe they don't know about us. How can we engage with communities that you have that maybe those were rooms that we weren't invited in, that we weren't welcomed in before, that that's what we want to see is long term partnerships that mean so much to us where we can host events together and combine our communities so that it's super important to us as well. And again, it's about that inner work. If you're not doing that inner work, that shadow work to unlearn the racism that has been embedded in the anti blackness that has been taught to every single one of us that's been embedded in our society.

Do that work first, that I can't stress that enough. Do the reading, do the work, go to the protest, talk to the people that again, if you are a white person, you have privileges that obviously we don't. We want to see you having those conversations with each other. First, I hear you talk about this is about young girls and what the future is going to look like for them. And it's important for companies to change their behavior internally and also maybe to bring young girls into their spaces and to work with Black Girls Code to bring in your community members so that they can see these spaces and imagine themselves in it.

Absolutely. Yeah. The time before covid-19, we were able to do some really amazing things with our corporate partners, where we did a ton of field trips with our girls, where they were able to go into these spaces and they would just light up. We would love to do more tours of facility so we can show our girls. We would love to get them in front of CEOs. I mean, that those are the type of partnerships and events that we want we want to work with.

And and we've seen a lot of that. And so I know that it's changing. Change is slow, but it's happening. And we're so excited for a number of partners relationships that we're currently building. And that's what they look like. They're folks that are coming to us and saying, you know, we we understand that there's there's work that needs to be done. We want to do that work and we want to do that work with you on an ongoing basis.

You know, we're excited for folks to come into the fold and to meet us, and we would love to introduce our girls to them. If you could meet our group. I mean, they are the most inspirational kids I've ever seen. They're way smarter than me, which is they're kind of intimidating.

They're like nine years old and they can tell you about Python. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I love that. What's up? Rahul's ruby? And they're just beyond inspirational.

So if we if we could get our girls in front of them and and show them show them how amazing we are and they are, that's that's the community we're trying to build here, these girls. I can tell you all of the languages and they're already aspiring to start their own companies to solve global problems.

Really, I'm really excited for this podcast to air and hopefully we get folks who want to work with us and will further this incredible mission.

The real deal or the real deal? You have your hand raised. Do you have a question?

I just want to underscore, you have your hand. You have my hand reduced my virtual injuries.

I just don't underscore what you're saying about like long term and long term partnerships. In my experience, working with sponsors and partners and now talking to other community leaders, I feel like sometimes there are folks that come in the door looking to like exchange value. It's like, how can I give you this? And then what comes back? And there's a perspective shift to think about, like, how do you create value together? How do you do things as partners that you all couldn't do alone, that it's really like the Voltron, the these two forces can come together and bid and do something like with this community and with the sort of the assets of the people you bring as like a company or a business hoping to partner.

Yeah. How can you bring that all together and do something unique and valuable to people involved? And I feel like that creative spirit requires long term thinking, but really can lead to some of the best partnerships.

Exactly. It really is about relationship building for us. If this is this is work we've been doing for a very long time and we will continue to do this work. And so we want to bring people into the fold who are committed to this, to this to this mission as well. And like you said, this is long term for us and we hope that our partnerships are about that relationship building even with the best friendships. Sometimes you don't talk for months, right.

But you circle back and you come back and you think, oh, well, this is a cool event that I'm hosting. I would love to have black girls could be a part of this or in time, we would love for you to be a part of something that we're doing. And so that's what that's what my role is, is really relationship building. And and that's exciting. I want to get into some of the the mushy stuff to the feel good stuff here.

Yeah, well, I just I know you're new to Black Girls Code, but do any moment stick out to you from the work that you've done so far, the people that you've met there were really meaningful that you could share.

Absolutely. So I talk about one student in particular a lot. And she's I've met several girls and they're all, like I said, so amazing in their own way. But there is this one girl. Her name is Samiah Green. And what a firecracker. Samiah is everything. She has this adorable cherub face, these sweet, adorable cheeks and these beautiful curls and just so full of life. And I got to know some my gosh, I'm trying to remember how we got to meet.

I don't even remember how it came about, but I remember jumping. Oh. So we wanted to do when we were first starting our tech mini series, we thought, oh, it'd be great to have one of our girls be in conversation with Kimberly on an Instagram.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, oh, talk to Samiah. So I get on the phone with Samiah and her mom Sharina and I had such a great time talking to both Samiah and her mom that I didn't want to get off the phone. I'm like, I'm such a fan of this kid. Like, this kid is so cool. And so we do the Instagram wide and it goes so well. And then Somalia is just on point when I tell you she's one of the best moderators and interviewers at the tender age of 11 that I've ever seen.

And so she does a spectacular job. So I follow up after that. And I'm like, you know what? We got to do something else together. Kid, you're a star. I need to be your manager or a fan or something. And so we got together and we came up with this idea of creating her own show. So what we did is she loves multifaceted this one. Not only is she incredible at coding, but she's also super interested in drama.

She's she started she's been in several plays with her school. She wants to start her own company. She does DIY. She's just everything. And so we got together. We're like, let's let's make a show together. And so we're actually in the works of creating a series called DIY Diva because we call our girls technical. And so she is she's creating a series called DIY Diva. And the purpose around that is she's going to do projects at home on things that you can find in your cabinet at home.

Nothing fancy because we have to always think about access. Right. So what can you make at home if that's something cool, like a face scrub or how can you create ice cream and things like that kid projects and how they relate to them. So she'll break down the science of it. Like this is a lemon faced scrub that we're making and this is how lemon interacts with your skin and just killing it. The girl is incredible. That's my Mushie moment, is just knowing her and being inspired by her and her audacity and her courage, and I always tell her I'm like, Samiah, whenever you're famous, what she will be.

Please introduce me to Beyonce. So she's always like, don't worry, I, I got you. I'm going to you know, I'm really banking on that because that's as close as I'm ever going to get.

Yeah. It's just I'm I that's that's the moment for me. And recently we actually had during the awards, we had a commercial with Mison and Samiah does the voiceover for one of the commercial.

My gosh. Amazing. In our program, since I believe she was seven or eight years old. Since then, she's gotten to interview Will Smith. She's been a keynote speaker at Alphatech. She's spoken for Bobbly. She's been south by Southwest. She's just she's been keynote speaker. And so more engagements. And I can I just. Yeah, I'm floored. I'm floored. I'm always like I'm always moved when I talk about her because I just looking at her makes me so secure and what our future looks like.

Yeah.

I love it too, because you guys are elevating her or helping her get a platform which in turn inspires other girls, gives other girls a vision of who they can be and see a role model as amazing. I feel like you guys should just start like an agency or agency is the next the next prong.

Thinking about that more and more as we I'm looking at all of these skill sets that we're teaching these girls. And and I think that's that you're right. The next step for us and that's something I'm building out right now, not the not the talent agency, but to how do we give a platform to more of these girls? Because a lot of our girls are on their own starting to teach courses to other young kids, which is just the coolest.

It's just that that's amazing. We got a message the other day from a particular mom who reached out and said, my girl got all of these great skills from Black Girls Code. And now she is doing instructions and doing webinars for other students to learn to code. And she says, I I've never seen her so confident. And that really is what stuck out for me, is that, again, it's yes, it's about the skills that we're teaching them.

But it's also about that. It's also about that confidence building. It's about telling them and showing them that not only are they enough, they are more than enough. They already have what it takes to succeed. And we're just going to help prop them up and help them showcase those skills. But these men, they're. Yeah, I get I get I get all humby. You guys are like gathering like this biggest superstars of young black girls all around the country and beyond, like into your organization, basically, just like all the amazing, super talented.

What can our listeners do to help? If, you know, is someone out there listening wants to support Black Girls Code in some way, what do you guys need more of? What's your big wish to put out to the universe?

Well, I think the first thing is support black girls, period. Just so poor black girls and your in your neighborhood, in your life, in this country, in your in your workplace for support. Black girls and women. That's that's first for me. But when it comes to Black Girls Code, we have we're always looking for donations of equipment because we're talking about underserved populations. Our girls don't always have access to the computers and the technology that they need to even participate.

So that's that's a battle that we're always addressing. Like I said, we're always looking for partners who want to work with us long term or even short term. Some sometimes you don't have the capacity to build out these larger scale projects or larger scale donations. But if you have an event that you're working on and you want to partner with us, I'm always looking for that sponsor. One of the girls that's always wonderful. Our services to the girls are free, our workshops are free.

But things like summer camp, we've had a number of people sponsor our girls to go to our summer camp. But yeah, I mean, honestly, just connect with us. We will find a way to put you to use. Let's just say we'll certainly find a way to plug in and to connect and to to get you involved with our mission and to just bring you into our fold. It's not always about these big, large relationships or large corporate sponsorships or anything like that.

It's about growing our community. That's what I care about the most, is how do we get our message out? Even if you're just sharing a post or sharing a tweet, that's something that's that means a lot as well to us. We've had a number of people just share what we're doing and that reaches their community. So just, yeah, giving us an opportunity to speak to your community, whether it's coming into your office and saying a word at your retreat to your off site, which we've been doing a number of those things, or just simply, again, sharing that the work that we're doing, that means a lot.

So there's. There's numerous ways that we can partner and we're still getting innovative about those ways. So if you have an idea, just bring it to the table. We're happy to discuss it. We're a small team, so sometimes it takes a little longer to get back. So give us a little bit of grace at the moment, but we will respond to every single message that we receive ISIS.

Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for the energy that you bring. And thank you for the work that you're doing and really appreciate Black Girls Code. You all are an inspiration. So thank you for your time today.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you, Bailey and Kevin, for allowing me this platform to talk about the work that we do.

If you want to connect with ISIS and Black Girls Code, head to their website, Black Girls Code dot com. Thank you to our team, Greg David, for his design work, Katie OConnell for marketing this episode, and Rossana Cabonne for sound engineering and editing go team.

You could find out more about the work Kevin Kay and I do as people in company helping organizations get clear on who their most important communities are and how to build with those people by heading to our website people and company at that beautiful, y'all can also pick up your copy of our guidebook for building your own community. Get together. Oh, and last thing you don't mind, please review us or click subscribe on this podcast. It helps more stories like ISIS's get out to more people and Kevin and I to end up in more people's airports.

Yeah, that'd be cool and be cool.

All right. Cool, cool. I got.