‘This really changes things’: Local non-profit receives 30 laptops

An organization aimed at encouraging young women to join the technology sector has received a significant donation from a Winnipeg company.

The holiday season is still in full swing, and a Winnipeg-founded group working to inspire girls to join the male-dominated technology sector has just received a gift that will make computer-based learning more accessible.

While She Is True (WST) is a non-profit that offers free in-person and online coding classes for girls ages 8 to 15.

Founded by Ebun Makinde, the idea for the group came about when she realized there were very few females in her Winnipeg high school computer science classes.

“You have a class of almost 30, and you’d have like three to five girls in it, and this continued from grades 10 to 12. I also noticed in my community there was a need from the young girls around me, such as my sister and her friends,” explained Makinde. “They were interested in computer science through trying to make their own games and whatnot. But seeing the reality, that there were not that many girls interested in the field, and the opportunities were not there, I then decided, ‘Why not start an after-school club?’ which eventually morphed into a nonprofit, which is what we are running.”

Makinde said she recognized that many females were missing an integral component to learning more about STEM: access to laptops.

“The tools they need were not readily provided for. In fact, there are some statistics that when a family is buying a laptop, it’s usually put in the brother’s room, rather than the sister’s room,” said Makinde.

On Monday, Payworks, a payroll and HR company, donated 30 refurbished laptops to assist WST with their goal of providing equitable access to coding.

The relationship between the two organizations began when Makinde reached out about participating in one of their events.

“So I went to one of their coding camps this summer, where we had initially donated five laptops at the time, and she (Makinde) shared today that that made a difference in access to courses and the learning experiences for the individuals,” said Maureen Kinnear, chief technology officer at Payworks. “So through that, it created the catalyst to find an opportunity for us to deliver more hardware to students to enable further participation and equitable access to the program.”

Makinde noted the infusion of the new laptops will help students avoid many of the roadblocks they previously faced, such as device and software compatibility restraints.

“This really changes things because now there’s uniformity, there’s equal access, there’s no barrier in terms of ‘Because I can’t have a device, I can’t learn how to code, or I can’t learn AI, or I can’t learn this,’” explained Makinde.

Kinnear said that she hopes Paywork’s donation will inspire other companies to donate laptops they no longer need.

“They can be of huge use to enabling, building out diversity in the technology pipeline, and helping While She Is True have a broader impact across the country.”