The Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program represents an innovative approach to computer cience education, pairing seven weeks of intensive instruction in robotics, web design, and mobile development with engaging, career-focused mentorship and exposure led by the industry's top female entrepreneurs and engineers.

The Washington D.C. Metro Area is full of dozens of organizations dedicated to lowering the barrier for women and minorities in tech. DCFemTech, a collective of DC & Metro area women and minority focused organizations is launching a series of interviews with women in tech leaders to highlight their group's mission, culture and events. The goal is to help women and minorities navigate the local tech scene to find a group that best fits their needs.

At 26, Natalie Madeira Cofield was living in Washington, D.C. and running her own consulting firm, which included high-profile clients such as Citibank, the University of Rochester, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and the United Negro College Fund. While Cofield was already well on her way down a successful professional path, she knew she wanted mentors to help her navigate the way. She quickly found that while the men were more than willing, the women-especially black women- weren't even responding to her emails. decided the only way to fix her problem was to launch an organization, and that was the beginning of Walker's Legacy, a global business women platform. Formed in 2009, the organization was named after Madam C. J. Walker, the first self-made female millionaire in American history.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did make good on his promise to release more diversity statistics before the New Year. Even if no one noticed. Nadella made headlines at Microsoft's shareholders meeting on Dec. 3 when he publicly promised Rev. Jesse Jackson, who attended the meeting, that he would release the company's federal Equal Employment Opportunity form, or EEO-1, by the end of the month. The company released percentages earlier this year showing women made up 29 percent of the company's workforce, but civil rights activists have pushed companies to release the federal form, which contains more information.