Dear Techbridge Girls Community,
Techbridge Girls is founded in optimism. The educators and innovators at the Chabot Space & Science Center, where we had our first offices, and at the National Science Foundation, where we received our first grant, were optimistic about American innovation in STEM. Our founder recognized the immense potential in girls from marginalized communities, and they recognized the immense benefit of that potential for the American workforce. And they were optimistic about building a bridge from the still-mostly-male STEM workspaces of the year 2000 to workspaces rich in diversity, experiences, and innovation.
We are optimists, and we are realists. Techbridge Girls is a non-profit organization committed to the education of children from groups that have historically been cut off from pathways to education and lucrative jobs. Our job is to recognize and encourage potential. Our job is also to recognize and overcome the inequities and injustices that prevent children from realizing that potential.
Today, our focus is on girls of color and gender-expansive youth, and our mandate remains the same: to create spaces of inclusion and safety for these children to learn the concepts and skills they need to excel in STEM fields. Our programs equip educators with the tools they need to create these inclusive and safe spaces.
We can see a better world emerging. We see it in the backgrounds and accomplishments of our alumni. We see it in our community of educators. But most of all, we see it in the faces and the stories of the young people we reach. We’re living in the richest nation in the world – rich not just in terms of income or output, but rich in diversity. America’s richness is in her people, in their differences and in their ability to bridge those differences.
As we enter a new political era, I want to take this moment to appreciate the richness of our Techbridge Girls community. Together, we will continue to re-engineer inequitable systems and to equip more educators to prepare more children – including trans kids, immigrant girls, black girls, indigenous girls, and other girls of color – for success in STEM fields. We will continue to create and defend inclusive and safe spaces for STEM education. And we will continue to encourage and foster constructive dialogue within our community to build a brighter future for all our children.
Sincerely,
Savita Raj
CEO, Techbridge Girls