Techbridge Girls

Oakland, California, 94612-2054 United States

Mission Statement

The mission of Techbridge Girls (TBG) is to excite, educate and equip girls from low-income communities to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers and achieve economic mobility and better life chances. To achieve our mission, we design high-quality, girl-centric STEM programs and learning experiences and we train educators to deliver our unique programs to marginalized girls across the U.S.

About This Cause

Techbridge Girls (TBG) is an award-winning national nonprofit bringing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to all girls across the U.S. For 20+ years, TBG has reengineered the way STEM education is taught, centering our girls’ brilliance and potential, with an emphasis on increasing STEM access, belonging, and persistence for BIPOC youth from systematically marginalized communities. To equip girls and gender-expansive youth to persist in STEM careers, we support educators (teachers, nonprofit facilitators, and volunteers) in delivering high-quality, comprehensive, ready-to-use, equity-focused, gender and culturally responsive STEM programs. By providing educators with our unique lens to STEM education, we can provide exponentially more girls from marginalized communities with award-winning STEM programming than we could through a direct service program model. Each of our services equips educators with gender and culturally responsive teaching tools, engages families to support their youths’ persistence, and connects girls to BIPOC peers and role models from STEM fields to inspire and encourage. Our core services include: - Inspire: A 12-week, in-person, elementary program that excites 3rd to 5th-graders about broad STEM concepts. Girls take risks, work in teams, and learn about STEM careers. Inspire educators receive materials kits for each lesson and an intensive 10 hours of pre-session training and are part of a learning community throughout their engagement. - ChangeMakers: A 12-week, in-person, middle school program, introducing 6th to 8th grade girls to broad science disciplines such as electrical engineering, chemical engineering, and computer science. Girls make change using STEM through a culminating community impact project. ChangeMakers educators receive materials kits for each lesson and an intensive 10 hours of pre-session training and are part of a learning community throughout their engagement. - Ignite (formerly TBG@Home): A virtual or in-person program where educators work with girls to deliver 8 engaging, broad STEM and social-emotional activities, accompanied by demonstration videos produced by role models. Educators are trained through a two-hour on-demand training video and sites also receive STEM kits for each lesson. - Expanding Your Horizons (EYH): One-time virtual or in-person events that often serve as girls’ first experience with STEM and Techbridge Girls. Events provide broad STEM exposure, keynotes from women in STEM, women role models, and resources to sustain engagement post-event. TBG’s services are different because they deepen participants’ belief that they can succeed in STEM because of who they are, not despite it. We affirm the identities of girls of color, promote their lineage in scientific exploration and research, define scientific concepts in their own language, and connect them to role models who intentionally and proudly talk about their identities. TBG programs utilize a social-emotional, gender expansive, and culturally relevant framework that focuses on: - Being STEM: leveraging role models, affirming girls’ identities, and challenging the dominant narrative in STEM. - Doing STEM: providing scientific concepts in the girls’ own language, experiential learning, and confidence building. - Using STEM: leveraging STEM as a tool for social change, developing leadership skills, and creating a culture of STEM as an accessible every day tool. We believe that without BIPOC girls’ experiences, values, interests, voices, and brilliance, we will never experience the full possibilities of what STEM can do for our world. In response, we have set a bold goal to reach 1 million girls by 2030 because we believe no girl should be shut out or left behind in the STEM revolution. History: Launched in 2000 at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California, with a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Techbridge Girls was one of the earliest organizations to focus on introducing girls and minorities to the STEM fields. After a decade of exemplary outcomes, Techbridge won another prestigious NSF grant to scale our after-school programs nationally. Techbridge launched in San Jose in 2011, then in Greater Seattle in 2014, and in Washington, D.C. in 2015. Over our 21 year history, we have reached over 77,000 youth, including 7,800 girls directly engaged in our after-school and summer programs and 70,000 students engaged through partnerships with youth-serving groups. Today, 10 national board members govern Techbridge Girls in support of our strategic direction and development. With the strong leadership of Nikole Collins-Puri, Techbridge Girls CEO, and a stakeholder-driven strategic plan, we continue to champion equity in STEM education and access to economic opportunity for all girls.

Techbridge Girls
1423 Broadway, Suite 575
Oakland, California 94612-2054
United States
Phone 510-777-9170
Unique Identifier 274162514