A new event is being planned in Sarnia in 2024 to encourage diversity in coding.
Go CODE Girl builds off of the success of the Go ENG Girl events held at the Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park.
Executive Director Dr. Katherine Albion said the Western Engineering outreach team is planning to hold the event at the beginning of April.
"It will be an event for girls and non-binary youth, in grades seven to ten, to learn more about coding and software development and to discover opportunities in the computing and the engineering field," said Albion.
Albion said it will really compliment what has been held in the past.
"This is focused more on the technology, the software development and the computing, just to help educate them, inspire them, and provide them with some of the digital skills and confidence that they need to pursue a career in technology and computing," she said.
Albion said coding is one of the fastest growing sectors.
"In the future, it will be incorporated into a lot of different fields that it's not currently involved in. So, it's going to become a very high demand skill. Not necessarily for software development, but for every day operations," said Albion.
Albion said about 70 youth registered for Go ENG Girl in 2023.
"For Go CODE Girl, we will be reducing that number slightly," she said. "But we will be providing registration information in the winter."
Albion said they'll be marketing the event once registration opens.