Kimberly Bryant is an African American electrical engineer who worked in the biotechnology field at Genentech, Novartis Vaccines, Diagnostics, and Merck. In 2011, Bryant founded Black Girls Code, a non profit organization that focuses on providing technology and computer programming education to African American girls.
1967
Tennessee USA
African American
2012 – Bryant received the prestigious Jefferson Award for Community Service for her work to support Bay Area communities with Black Girls Code.
2013 – Bryant was recognized as a White House Champion of Change for Tech Inclusion.
She was voted one of the 25 Most Influential African Americans In Technology by Business Insider, awarded the Pahara-Aspen Education Fellowship, and named on The Root 100 and the Ebony Power 100 lists.
2014 – Bryant was the recipient of Smithsonian Magazine’s American Ingenuity Award for Social Progress. She also was one of the winners of the POLITICO Women Who Rule Award.
2019 – Bryant was one of 65 finalists across 13 categories to present their projects at the 22nd annual Interactive Innovation awards presented by KPMG. She was also presented the SXSW Interactive Festival Hall of Fame award.
She has described herself as a `nerdy girl,’ excelling in mathematics and science in school. She earned a scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University in 1985, where she planned to become a civil engineer. Enticed by technologies such as the microchip, the personal computer, and the portable cellphone, she switched her major and earned a degree in Electrical Engineering and minors in Computer Science and Math in 1989.
Early in her career, Bryant held jobs at electrical companies Westinghouse Electric and DuPont. Later, Bryant would move to biotechnology and then to to pharmaceutical companies, where she worked at Pfizer, Merck, and at Genentech and Novartis.
Bryant founded Black Girls Code in 2011 after her daughter expressed an interest in learning computer programming. In her search for available courses in the Bay area, she found that none were well-suited for her daughter. They were taken mostly by boys, and rarely had any other African American girls in attendance. Having experienced isolation herself during her time studying and working, she wanted a better environment for her daughter. Bryant hopes that this endeavour will allow young girls, especially those from minority populations, to remain involved in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathemetics) and increase awareness within the field. African American women make up less than 3% of the workforce in the tech industry and Black Girls Code fights to change and improve this percentage for the better.
Black Girls Code teaches computer programming to school age girls in afterschool and summer programmes. The San Francisco based nonprofit organisation has a goal of teaching one million Black girls to code by 2040. The organisation already has trained 3,000 girls in fifteen chapters in cities across the United States and abroad, including a chapter in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In August 2017 Bryant turned down a $125,000 donation by Uber, following allegations of sexual harassment at Uber. Bryant also noted in her refusal that Girls Who Code was offered ten times the amount that was offered to Black Girls Code. In February 2018 Black Girls Code partnered with Uber’s competitor Lyft – as Bryant considered their values to be better aligned with her own.
Bryant is a thought leader in the area of inclusion in the field of technology, and has spoken on the topic at events such as TedX Kansas City, TedX San Francisco, Platform Summit, Big Ideas Festival, and SXSW.
Bryant serves on the National Champions Board for the National Girls Collaborative Project, a charitable organization whose vision is to bring together organizations across the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in STEM. She also serves on the board of the National Centre for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) K-12 Alliance, a group dedicated to creating access to an inclusive computing education for girls everywhere.
After a rash of resignations in 2021, with employees citing `cultural and interpersonal issues [at the organisation]’ the board of directors for Black Girls Code ousted Bryant on 23 December 2021 from her position as CEO. She was placed on suspension, while `serious allegations of workplace impropriety are being investigated.’ As of April 2022 no findings have been published.
Kimberly Bryant was born and raised by a single mother amidst the Civil Rights Movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberly_Bryant_(technologist) accessed 22/03/2022
https://abc7news.com/black-girls-code-founder-kimberly-bryant-suspended-investigation/11408150/ accessed 22/03/2022
https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/bio/kimberly-bryant accessed 22/03/2022
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/kimberly-bryant-quotes accessed 22/03/2022
