GirlCode expands coding initiatives as youth unemployment soars in SA
Digital skills gap blocks economic opportunity
Despite growing demand for tech expertise across industries, digital literacy remains out of reach for many young people, especially women. While the private and public sectors digitise rapidly, few school-leavers are equipped with even basic tools like Excel or Word — let alone more advanced coding or data analysis capabilities.
Zandile Mkwanazi, founder and CEO of GirlCode, says this lack of foundational skills is a major barrier to entry into the workforce. “Technology is no longer just an industry,” she says. “It’s fundamental to almost every profession.”
Women remain underrepresented in tech roles
Technology remains male-dominated, due to a mix of cultural, structural, and practical factors. The work is often solitary, high-pressure and mentally demanding — and access to training is uneven. While the sector is starting to appeal to more young women, the gap remains stark.
GirlCode was launched in 2014 to address this imbalance. Initially a women-only hackathon, it has since evolved into a national non-profit focused on equipping girls and women with practical tech skills.
Programmes aimed at long-term impact
GirlCode now offers a range of initiatives including:
- An annual hackathon, returning in October 2025
- An online bootcamp for unemployed youth
- The GirlCoder Club, which provides learners from Grades 3 to 10 with training in Scratch, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Python
The organisation aims to expose 10 million women and girls to technology by 2030.
Private sector partnerships driving employment
One of GirlCode’s key sponsors is Mint Group, an enterprise software company. Since 2021, Mint has hosted GirlCode learners for workplace-based training. Many of these learners have since secured permanent jobs — some in IT support, others in marketing roles that apply their user experience (UX) skills.
Lauren Clark, head of people at Mint, says: “The young women we’ve hosted bring new perspectives, and their enthusiasm for learning and growth has been a joy to observe.”
Preparing for the future of development
While AI is making some coding tasks easier, core development skills remain critical. Mkwanazi says strong collaborations between industry, government and organisations like GirlCode are essential if South Africa is to build a sustainable, world-class digital workforce.
“Beyond just coding,” she says, “we’re building a sisterhood of innovators ready to tackle the continent’s biggest challenges.”