Over the last few years, and arguably punching way above its weight, Code First: Girls has been doing important work. The U.K. social enterprise, which originally spun out of company builder Entrepreneur First, has already taught more than 5,000 women to code, with the broader aim of helping to close the gender gap in the country’s tech industry and tackle the tech skills shortage in general.

Today the organization is upping the stakes, kicking off a campaign to teach 20,000 young women in the U.K. and Ireland how to code for free by the end of 2020. To help achieve this, Code First: Girls is running a crowdfunding campaign, in addition to working with partners and backers from leading employers, including KKR and OVH, to train young women at the start of their careers ...

In addition to the training, Code First: Girls is building a community platform to support the course alumnae so that they cam learn from and support each other. And, perhaps smartly, through the platform, the campaigns’ “top tier” partners will get access to the eventual pool of 20,000 young women who have completed the coding courses and are wanting to explore career opportunities in tech and digital.

Read the full article about training female coders in the UK by Steve O'Hear at TechCrunch.