Microsoft announced the winners of the Windows Azure Developers Competition on Wednesday, and first place goes to Black Girls Code. The San Francisco-based nonprofit, which focuses on teaching girls ages 7 to 17 computer programming, beat out technology education nonprofits Code.org
and CoderDojo.Black Girls Code won $50,000 out of a total of $100,000 in grant money awarded to five nonprofit organizations. Code.org, which is focused on making computer science education available in
more schools and increasing participation from women and underrepresented students of color, won second place and $20,000, the Windows Azure blog reports. The third place winners–CoderDojo, Teaching Kids Programming and CodeDay by StudentRND–each received $10,000.“As
the mother of a 14-year-old daughter, I really felt that it was important that she have the opportunities that I did not receive as a child,†said Kimberly Bryant, the founder of BGC, in the AzureDev winner announcement. “Women of color are the least represented in the technology space today and now we represent less than 3% of those receiving degrees in computer science.â€Take a look at BGC’s winner announcement below: