Silicon Valley-based company Toptal introduces scholarship for female developers

A women sitting at a computer | Photo courtesy: Irina Papuc

Toptal, a large and rapidly growing company comprised of freelance technology engineers and designers, has started a $5,000 scholarship for female developers.

According to the company, gender imbalance has always been a significant issue in technical fields. In North America, women make only 18.1 per cent in tech leadership. Although women make up around 30 per cent of the workforce in the tech industry, less than 20 per cent of those women hold technical roles in companies such as Facebook or Slack.

To address the problem and to help aspiring female developers, computer scientists, as well as those looking to pursue a technical career or their passion for technology, Toptal opened its new scholarship for female developers on Oct. 21.

The scholarship, running through Nov. 15, 2016, has a rolling deadline and is open to all females aged 13 and up. A total of twelve $5,000 scholarships will be awarded on a monthly basis. In addition to money, all winners will get a year of one-on-one online mentoring with senior level developers.

“We believe one of the reasons why there are so many men compared to women in tech field is because they don’t get the encouragement and the guidance,” said Irina Papuc, the community evangelist at Toptal. Applicants can apply as many times as they want, she added.

The requirements for the scholarship are quite simple. “Our scholarship program is an international contest,” said Papuc. The only three steps applicants have to do, according to the Toptal website, are correctly fill out the application form, start a personal technical blog and make a meaningful contribution to open source.

To apply visit http://www.toptal.com/scholarships. The final winner will be announced on Nov. 15, 2016.