Nonprofit PionerasDev wins US$50,000 through IBM

Contxto – One non-profit from Colombia is making history.

Yesterday (29), IBM announced that Medellín-based PionerasDev won its Open Source Community Grant for its work in promoting women’s participation in programming. Moreover it’s the first time an organization from Latin America wins this quarterly grant.

• Related article: Django Girls and Fluid Attacks want more women in IT in Colombia

For its efforts, PionerasDev earned US$50,000 (US$25,000 in funding for cloud-computing and US$25,000 in cash). The Colombian nonprofit will use these resources to continue hosting online events and bootcamps. Staff also plans to launch “Pionera Conference,” its first tech powwow ever.

PionerasDev in Colombia

Through events, meetups, and bootcamps, PionerasDev is bringing more women into tech and thus, more promising job opportunities. It even found that 80 percent of the women it works with come from low-income areas are unemployed, and/or don’t have access to quality higher education.

The nonprofit has undoubtedly come a long way since its launch. Throughout its three year run, the program has grown from five members to 1,200. 

“We began as a small group of women focused on Node.js technology, and when we launched, the women who were joining our meetups thought they were there for digital marketing training,” explains PionerasDev CEO, Marian Villa.

“Coding and development weren’t even on the radar. But now, through countless events and a growing community, we’re showing women that they too can be active in the tech and open source worlds.”

Correspondingly, PionerasDev has expanded on the content its course covers. Examples include frameworks like Angular and React, and of course skills in HTML and JavaScript.

If you want to learn more, check out PionerasDev’s page here. As truly it’s efforts like those made by these organizations that are programming a better and more diverse future in software development for Latam.

Related articles: Tech and startups from Colombia!

-ML