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Calling All Women!

You CAN Code.

Real code, with AI as your pair programmer and an instructor alongside.

In 10 days, ship a working tool for your own life, job or business. Day 1 is free. Unlock the rest a day at a time. What you build is yours to keep.

Day 1 freeUnlock days 2 to 1010 days in two 5-day levelsLive with the founder

  • A woman at her kitchen table talking with her AI twin on a laptop2026 Today: you, with your AI agentsPortrait of Sophie Wilson1983 Sophie Wilson
  • Portrait of Mira Murati2025 Mira MuratiPortrait of Lynn Conway1980 Lynn Conway
  • Portrait of Timnit Gebru2021 Timnit GebruPortrait of Karen Sp盲rck Jones1972 Karen Sp盲rck Jones
  • Portrait of Joy Buolamwini2016 Joy BuolamwiniPortrait of Margaret Hamilton1969 Margaret Hamilton
  • Portrait of Shafi Goldwasser2012 Shafi GoldwasserPortrait of Katherine Johnson1962 Katherine Johnson
  • Portrait of Kimberly Bryant2011 Kimberly BryantPortrait of Dorothy Vaughan1961 Dorothy Vaughan
  • Portrait of Fei-Fei Li2009 Fei-Fei LiPortrait of Grace Hopper1959 Grace Hopper
  • Portrait of Barbara Liskov2008 Barbara LiskovPortrait of Mary Jackson1958 Mary Jackson
  • Portrait of Frances Allen2006 Frances AllenPortrait of Annie Easley1955 Annie Easley
  • Portrait of Radia Perlman1985 Radia PerlmanPortrait of Ada Lovelace1843 Ada Lovelace

The whole timeline, and photo credits

Courses

Pick your course

Three ways in, all from Women Can Code. Start with the one that fits the time you have and what you want to walk away with.

From 1843 to now

They Could. You CAN.

Ada Lovelace wrote the first published program in 1843. Women have been building computing ever since, and they are building AI now: search, chips, phones, computer vision, AI ethics and frontier labs.

  1. 1843 to 1959

    The first programs

    Before there was a word for software.

    • 1843Portrait of Ada Lovelace
      Ada LovelaceWorked on Charles Babbage's analytical engine, and is often considered the first computer programmer. SourcePhoto: Antoine Claudet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1955Portrait of Annie Easley
      Annie EasleyA computer scientist who contributed to the beginning iterations of NASA's rocket technologies. SourcePhoto: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1958Portrait of Mary Jackson
      Mary JacksonStarted as a computer at NACA, and in 1958 became NASA's first black female engineer. SourcePhoto: NASA Langley Research Center, Bob Nye, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1959Portrait of Grace Hopper
      Grace HopperDeveloped the FLOW-MATIC programming language, a major influence on COBOL, and was one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I. SourcePhoto: James S. Davis, US Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
  2. 1960 to 1979

    Space, compilers and search

    Code that took people to orbit and the Moon, and the maths behind search.

    • 1961Portrait of Dorothy Vaughan
      Dorothy VaughanTaught herself and her staff the Fortran programming language at NASA Langley. SourcePhoto: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1962Portrait of Katherine Johnson
      Katherine JohnsonHer orbital mechanics calculations were critical to the first US crewed spaceflights. SourcePhoto: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1969Portrait of Margaret Hamilton
      Margaret HamiltonLed the development of the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer. SourcePhoto: restored by Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1972Portrait of Karen Sp盲rck Jones
      Karen Sp盲rck JonesA self-taught programmer who created inverse document frequency, which underlies most modern search engines. Her slogan: "Computing is too important to be left to men." SourcePhoto: Markus Kuhn, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
  3. 1980 to 2008

    Chips, networks and the phone in your pocket

    The processors, protocols and languages everything else runs on.

    • 1980Portrait of Lynn Conway
      Lynn ConwayInvented dynamic instruction handling at IBM, then co-led the Mead and Conway revolution that reshaped microchip design in the 1980s. SourcePhoto: Charles Rogers, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1983Portrait of Sophie Wilson
      Sophie WilsonDesigned the BBC Micro and BBC BASIC, then began designing the ARM processor, now the most widely used architecture in smartphones. SourcePhoto: Chris Monk, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 1985Portrait of Radia Perlman
      Radia PerlmanInvented the Spanning Tree Protocol, fundamental to how network bridges work. SourcePhoto: Scientist-100 at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 2006Portrait of Frances Allen
      Frances AllenA pioneer of optimizing compilers, and in 2006 the first woman to win the Turing Award. SourcePhoto: Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 2008Portrait of Barbara Liskov
      Barbara LiskovIntroduced abstract data types and the Liskov substitution principle; 2008 Turing Award. SourcePhoto: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  4. 2009 to 2019

    Who gets to build

    Computer vision, code clubs for girls, and holding algorithms to account.

    • 2009Portrait of Fei-Fei Li
      Fei-Fei LiEstablished ImageNet, the dataset that enabled rapid advances in computer vision in the 2010s, and co-founded AI4ALL to widen who builds AI. SourcePhoto: ITU Pictures, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 2011Portrait of Kimberly Bryant
      Kimberly BryantAn engineer who founded Black Girls Code, teaching technology and programming to African-American girls. SourcePhoto: St氓le Grut / nrkbeta, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 2012Portrait of Shafi Goldwasser
      Shafi GoldwasserA computer scientist at MIT and the Weizmann Institute who won the 2012 Turing Award with Silvio Micali. SourcePhoto: Weizmann Institute of Science, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 2016Portrait of Joy Buolamwini
      Joy BuolamwiniA computer scientist who founded the Algorithmic Justice League, challenging bias in decision-making software. SourcePhoto: Niccol貌 Caranti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  5. 2020 to 2026

    Building with AI

    The era you are learning in.

    • 2021Portrait of Timnit Gebru
      Timnit GebruCo-founded Black in AI, and founded the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) after co-authoring a paper on the risks of large language models. SourcePhoto: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 2025Portrait of Mira Murati
      Mira MuratiChief technology officer of OpenAI from 2022 to 2024, then co-founder and chief executive of Thinking Machines Lab, launched in February 2025. SourcePhoto: SWinxy, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
    • 2026
      YouWave 1 of Women Can Code: you describe it to a chatbot, read every line, test it, secure it, choose your model and ship it. Then you can explain it in an interview.Start Day 1, free

Right now

Women winning with AI

Women building, funding, researching and leading with AI, newest first. Every one links to the report it comes from.

More on Women With AI
Show all 31
  • Science and healthLaura Gilbert, senior director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute, makes the 2026 listLaura Gilbert was named in Computer Weekly's 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech 2026 for her work leading AI.Computer Weekly, 2026-10-15
  • BusinessStella & Dot founder Jessica Herrin raises $5M for AI marketing startup MarkloMarklo AI founder Jessica Herrin raised $5M for an AI marketing startup, Crunchbase News reports.Crunchbase News, 2026-10-14
  • Science and healthLila Ibrahim is Google's first Chief AI Readiness OfficerLila Ibrahim is Google's first Chief AI Readiness Officer, CNBC reports in its Changemakers podcast.CNBC, 2026-10-05
  • Science and healthEvvy raises $40M Series B for AI women's health diagnosticsWomen's health startup Evvy, co-founded by CEO Priyanka Jain, raised $40M to build AI-led diagnostics for women's health.SiliconANGLE, 2026-09-15
  • BusinessCahill names Kelly Graves first Chief AI Strategy and Innovation OfficerCahill Gordon and Reindel named Kelly Graves its first Chief AI Strategy and Innovation Officer and promoted her to partner.Business Wire, 2026-08-31
  • Science and healthOvum lands $4M seed for its AI women's health platformHealth tech startup Ovum, shown with Dr Ariella Heffernan-Marks, raised $4M in seed funding to expand its AI-powered women's health platform.SmartCompany, 2026-06-22
  • BusinessAnnie Liao on being a female solo founder of an AI startupAnnie Liao, 24, founder of the AI startup Build Club in San Francisco, writes about working to be taken seriously as a female solo founder.MSN, 2025-11-17
  • BusinessMira Murati launches Thinking Machines LabOpenAI's former chief technology officer founded her own AI company, Thinking Machines Lab.Wikipedia, 2025
  • Science and healthCambridge study: only 8% of AI scientists in a century of film are womenResearchers at Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence found that 92% of AI scientists and engineers on screen in influential films from 1920 to 2020 were men, and argue the stereotype may deter women from AI careers.University of Cambridge, 2023-02-13
  • BusinessMeredith Whittaker becomes president of SignalAI researcher Meredith Whittaker became president of the Signal Foundation.Wikipedia, 2022
  • BusinessDaniela Amodei co-founds AnthropicDaniela Amodei co-founded the AI company Anthropic and became its president.Wikipedia, 2021
  • Science and healthTimnit Gebru founds the DAIR InstituteTimnit Gebru founded the Distributed AI Research Institute, an independent home for community-rooted AI research.Wikipedia, 2021
  • Science and healthMargaret Mitchell joins Hugging FaceAI ethics researcher Margaret Mitchell joined Hugging Face.Wikipedia, 2021
  • MusicHolly Herndon launches Holly+Musician Holly Herndon released Holly+, an AI model of her own voice that others can sing through.Wikipedia, 2021
  • Science and healthDaphne Koller founds insitroDaphne Koller founded insitro, which uses machine learning to discover new medicines.Wikipedia, 2018
  • ArtAnna Ridler shows Mosaic VirusArtist Anna Ridler made Mosaic Virus, tulips generated by AI trained on photographs she took herself.Wikipedia, 2018
  • ArtStephanie Dinkins makes Not the Only OneArtist Stephanie Dinkins built Not the Only One, an AI trained on her family's stories.Wikipedia, 2018
  • Science and healthJoy Buolamwini founds the Algorithmic Justice LeagueJoy Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League to raise awareness of bias in AI.Wikipedia, 2016
  • ArtSougwen Chung draws with robotsArtist Sougwen Chung began drawing in collaboration with robotic arms trained on her own style.Wikipedia, 2015

The work that shaped how we see AI

The Women Can Code Community

A Real Community of Women Coding Together

Women Can Code is a London Meetup group. It says: "Calling all Women! You CAN code. Let us meet to help you get into coding or improve your work or business prospects through coding."

Some Past Events

  • Women Can Code brings you #IamRemarkable, a Google initiativeDecember 2021, online
  • Daily standups2021, online
  • Google Coding Competition for Women, info sessionsApril 2021, online

The House Rule

No recruiters or sales, unless they are sponsoring. This is a supportive community: by joining, you agree to collaborate and support.

The group is coming back with Wave 1.

Women Can Code on Meetup

Figures from the group's Meetup page.

Watch

Real Women Doing This

Videos we like, of real women building with AI. They are made by other people; we link to them, and the titles and claims are their own, not ours.

Women Can Code

Helping women to improve our outcomes

How every live session runs

The Agenda

Every live session follows the founder's own format. It is flexible: drop in or out whenever you need to, and work at your own level.

Flexible Sessions, Drop IN / OUT

  1. Brief Introduction to Women Can Code
  2. Brief Introduction to today's topic
  3. What jobs can I get?

#ChooseToChallenge Becoming Track

  1. Identify Your LevelLEVEL UPYour level is one of the two 5-day levels, each with its own certificate:
  2. Learn
  3. Keep Connected and Repeat 3 to 6
  • @WomenCanCode
  • #WomenCanCode
Women Can Code: The Agenda
The original Women Can Code agenda, as the founder made it for the group's Meetup page. Women Can Code on Meetup
[ Photo: for the founder to fill in ]

Your instructor, live on every call

Lorraine David

Founder of Women Can Code, based in London. Source: GitHub profile, LinkedIn

“I love to code. I also curate, promote, mentor and teach other women in tech.”

“If we can get 50% women in tech, that would be job done!”

Alumna of King's College London and Queen Mary University of London. Source: GitHub profile ("Alumni @kcl @QMUL")

[ Introduction video: for the founder to fill in ] An animated introduction, made with Ontold, for the founder to add. Animation only, not a lifelike video.

LinkedIn GitHub Women Can Code on Meetup

Learners' work, examples

What You'll Have Built

One project, Study Buddy, carried through all ten days. These are examples we made to show each stage. When there is real learner work, it replaces them.

See all 10 days

What you learn

The Skill Is Not Memorising Syntax

It is these six things, in a world where a chatbot can write the first draft.

  1. 1DescribeAsk a chatbot or an agent for exactly what you need.
  2. 2ReadRead what it wrote, and explain every line.
  3. 3TestProve it works, and catch it when it does not.
  4. 4SecureKeys, prompt injection, data and spending caps.
  5. 5Choose modelsLocal or frontier, by cost, privacy and quality.
  6. 6Ship and explainPut it live, and talk it through in an interview.

Not the same as WomenWithAI: that is about using AI in everyday life and work. This is about building your own software with it.

Alongside

How it works

Live alongside
  1. 01Describe itSay what you want to build, in plain words.
  2. 02Build it with AIIn your own GitHub repo, with AI as your pair programmer.
  3. 03Read and fix itUnderstand what it made, and fix what is wrong, live.
  4. 04Launch itLive on GitHub Pages, in your own GitHub account.

Free courses on every trackDay 1 is free, today. Days 2 to 10 unlock one at a time. Premium adds live calls with the founder. The 10-day buildLive-call cohorts register interest

Wave 1

Wave 1

Day 1
Free, open now
Starts
To be announced
Seats
To be announced
Days 2 to 10
Unlock each day. Premium: live calls with the founder
  • Screenshot of an example page: Tests caught a bug the AI wrote: three passing, one failing, then fixed and kept.

    Level 1, days 1 to 5

    Build it

    • A clear build brief
    • A live first version
    • One bug the AI made, caught by a test and fixed
    • A demo link

    Finish Level 1, get your Level 1 certificate

  • Screenshot of an example page: The project, its tests and its certificate on a portfolio page, with what to be asked in an interview.

    Level 2, days 6 to 10

    Make it real

    • At least two AI-powered iterations
    • A model inside your tool, chosen on cost, privacy and quality
    • A security check you can explain
    • A short pitch and a next-step roadmap

    Finish Level 2, get your Level 2 certificate

Choose your group:

  • Headline option

    Night Owls

    Online evenings, after bedtime. For women whose days are full.

    When: Evenings, UK time, to be announced

    Same 10 days as the other group, with recordings of every live session and the group chat. Demo day and the certificate ceremony are shared, online.

    Register interest

  • Day group

    Online in the daytime.

    When: To be announced

    Same 10 days as the other group, with recordings of every live session and the group chat. Demo day and the certificate ceremony are shared, online.

    Register interest

Start day 1 Wave 1 details

You leave with

Your tool live on GitHub Pages, a certificate for each level, and your project in the gallery.

What you leave with

Premium

Live with the founder, and her agents between calls

The days unlock on their own. Premium is the people part: Lorraine live on the calls, and the agents she runs and checks for the hours she is not there.

A woman at her kitchen table talking with her AI twin on a laptop
AI-generated image of a fictional person, from Women With AI

Every agent reply says it is an agent. The founder sets what they may do, reads what they did, and can pause any of them.

Register interest in Premium

What you finish with

What you leave with

Finish all 10 days and you leave with these.

Want your own domain? We show you how to connect one. It is optional, and the domain is yours to buy if you want one.

Tell me when Wave 1 starts

The challenge

The 10 days

10 days in two 5-day levels. Named for what you have at the end of each day.

See every day

Day 1 is free, today. Days 2 to 10 unlock one at a time. Premium adds live calls with the founder.

Level 1: Build it

Finish Level 1, get your Level 1 certificate

  1. Day 1Idea to build brief, then a live pageA build brief that turns your idea into something an AI can act on, then a first page a chatbot wrote from it, live at an address you can share, and you can explain every line.
  2. Day 2Own the code with GitYour page changed through a branch, a commit and a pull request, so every change the AI makes from now on can be seen, reviewed and undone.
  3. Day 3An AI pair programmer in your editorStudy Buddy saving your topics and scores, built with Copilot in your editor: you ask, it suggests, you accept only what you understand.
  4. Day 4Tests: make the AI prove itTests for what Study Buddy must do, a bug the AI wrote caught by one of them, fixed by you, and the test kept so it stays fixed.
  5. Day 5Launch Level 1, and start your portfolioStudy Buddy live on GitHub Pages with its tests passing, and a README that says what it does, how you tested it and what you would change: the first page of your portfolio.

Level 2: Make it real

Finish Level 2, get your Level 2 certificate

  1. Day 6Put a model inside it: local or frontierStudy Buddy answering questions from your own notes, tried two ways: a local open model on your laptop with Ollama, and a frontier model by API. You compare cost, privacy, speed and quality, and choose.
  2. Day 7Hand a task to a coding agentA real feature written by a coding agent from an issue you wrote, and its pull request reviewed by you: what you kept, what you sent back, and why.
  3. Day 8Security: break it before someone else doesNo keys in your code, a prompt injection tried against your own tool and stopped, a spending cap on anything that can charge you, and a test for each.
  4. Day 9Ship with quality, and code reviewTests running on every push in GitHub Actions, your code read by the group and theirs read by you, and Study Buddy usable on a phone and with a keyboard.
  5. Day 10Launch, demo day, interview practice and certificatesStudy Buddy launched, a 2-minute demo, a practice technical interview where you talk through your code and change it without the AI, your portfolio page, then the certificate ceremony.

Tools

What You Need, Honestly

Free, and needed

  • A free GitHub account. GitHub Skills exercises run in your own copy of the repo, with GitHub Actions checking each step.
  • GitHub Pages for going live. GitHub says: "GitHub Pages is available in public repositories with GitHub Free and GitHub Free for organizations" (Quickstart for GitHub Pages).
  • A browser. GitHub recommends a public repository for the exercises, since private ones use Actions minutes.

Optional, and not ours

  • An AI subscription such as Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, if you want one. Check each provider's own page for its plans.
  • GitHub Copilot is the AI pair programmer the GitHub Skills Copilot exercises use. Check GitHub's Copilot page for what each plan includes.
  • No API billing needed. You never have to put a card on an API account to do the 10 days.

Free courses

Go Deeper

Free courses made and run by other people. We link to them, credit them and never copy them, and none of them endorses us.

The whole shelf

GitHub Skills by GitHub

Interactive exercises in your own GitHub repo, checked by GitHub Actions. The 10 days follow these:

Resources

Resources by level

Free, made by other people, credited and linked. Start where you are.

  1. 1

    New to coding

  2. 2

    New to AI agents

  3. 3

    Hands-on

  4. 4

    Level up

    • mattpocock/skillsmattpocock on GitHub. Optional extras for AI coding tools. See the repo itself for what it contains and its licence.

Start With One Live Page, Today.

Day 1 is free, today. Days 2 to 10 unlock one at a time. Premium adds live calls with the founder. You need a free GitHub account and about 30 minutes.

Start day 1 Describe your idea