South Bay high school student creates TechPower4All to bring more girls, low-income students into tech

A lack of diversity in coding classes inspired a teenager in the South Bay to start exposing more girls and students from low-income backgrounds to pathways in the tech industry. Her work has already reached hundreds of children and teens in multiple countries even before she graduates from high school.

"The passion for technology is not just something that we just need to address when people are in the workforce, it's something that's important from a young age to address." said 16-year-old Radhika Goyal a high school student and the founder of TechPower4All. "What motivated me was the mission of trying to tackle this barrier to entry problem from early on."

When she was in eighth grade, she saw a flyer for a coding club and decided to join. Goyal was disappointed to see that in a room of 30 students, she was the only girl. But she kept pursuing an education in technology both in school and on her own time, giving her the confidence with the help of teachers and adult mentors to create TechPower4All.

Goyal now trains and recruits other students like her to teach workshops to youth around the world. They cover the basics of coding and even introduce concepts around artificial intelligence.

"I think living in Silicon Valley, it in many ways, opened my ideas to the lack of diversity," Goyal told KPIX. "A lot of these companies, when you go into their offices, and you see who the workers are, they don't represent the diversity of the people who live here."

She estimates that around 1,500 children and teens have benefited from the workshops thanks to 20 chapters in eight countries. She continues to train more students and recruit new volunteers. They see the benefit of doing this kind of outreach and also enjoy the chance to improve their understanding of technology.

"TechPower4All seemed like a very fun organization to be a part of and I've always enjoyed teaching others about coding as well," Sana Sangwan, a high school student who Goyal recently trained to lead workshops. "I thought it would be really fun to spread the knowledge to younger people and hopefully, also increase my own knowledge."

Goyal says access can be challenging for youth in low-income countries because they typically have a lot of responsibilities including helping their parents, so they don't have time to learn about technology on their own and this material isn't covered in their schools.

"It's really inspiring to me when we see youth who want to change this," she said.

Volunteers can sign up to learn more by emailing the group: techpower4all@gmail.com or visiting its website: www.techpower4all.org.