A Scholarship Named After Edie Windsor Is Helping Queer People Learn To Be Coders

"We literally have the power to change the face of tech."

From: NewNowNext

 As the lead plaintiff in United States v. Windsor, Edie Windsor helped dismantle DOMA and usher marriage equality across America.

Now her name is helping the community again, this time in the lucrative field of coding: Lesbians Who Tech is sponsoring the Edie Windsor Scholarship, which cover half of the tuition costs for LGBT people looking to learn how to code.

Aside from being an LGBT rights trailblazer, Windsor is also a former mathematician and computer scientist who broke barriers for women in the industry’s early days. She started working at IBM in 1958 and was eventually promoted to Senior Systems Programmer, the corporation’s highest technical post. (She was also the recipient of the first IBM PC delivered in New York City.)

Last year, 40 people were awarded Edie Windsor scholarships, which was backed in part by a Kickstarter campaign.

“Imagine what apps and software would look like if they were made by women, queer women, women of color,” Lesbians Who Tech’s Vanessa Newman told the Huffington Post last year. “We literally have the power to change the face of tech, if we can lift each other up, over the privileges and barriers to entry that come with learning the essential skills.”

Applications are open to anyone who identifies as queer and is looking to enroll in a coding program that starts between June and December 2017.

The last day to apply is April 30, 2017.