About us
Get ya geek on!
Girls who love tech still get pushed out of it. We keep them in.
Our CEO Sarah Moran learned to code at five and was pushed out of tech in Year 10. Girl Geek Academy exists so the next generation of girl geeks stay.
Women and girls shape the technology that shapes their lives. We ran the world’s first all-women hackathon in 2014. Then we realised: if we’d started teaching children 10 years ago, we could be hiring them today.
So now our programs teach women, girls and families across games, startups, 3D printing, design, software, hardware, AI, space, aviation and robotics — and we partner with teachers, parents, corporates and governments to keep girl geeks in.
Our girl gang · 2014
We accidentally ran the first all-women hackathon in the world
We were going to tech events, but they were usually held in dark basements where they fed us beer, pizza and energy drinks. (We like those things — but we have our limits.) Our mates were happy we came, but they’d ask: “Why don’t more girls come to our events?”
So we designed a hackathon we wanted to go to — as an example of how great tech events can be. We had tea and cupcakes. And yoga. And sunlight! We ran the first #SheHacks for International Women’s Day 2014.
We tried to find other women and non-binary folk running similar hackathons so we could be their friends. We looked and looked — and realised no one had run one before. We’d accidentally run the first all-women hackathon in the world.
We thought: if no one has done this very basic thing to support us, who’s working on the hard stuff? That’s when we knew we had a responsibility to do so. In July 2014 we founded Girl Geek Academy as a company and a global movement — and we’ve been building a world where tech isn’t just a boy’s club ever since.
Tech has a pipeline problem
Let’s talk about the holes in the pipe.
By age 6
Children classify jobs as male and female.
By age 8
They are limiting aspirations.
By 13
They rule out careers that don’t fit gender stereotypes.
By 16–17
Around 60% of girls aspire to stereotypically “female” jobs.
Gender inequality ain’t gonna fix itself
Since we launched, we’ve achieved more than we could have imagined — including:
Through grants, tenders, corporate clients and fundraising, we’ve prototyped what works — and campaigned in media for change.
Meet our founders
Five of us started Girl Geek Academy in 2014. Four of us run it today.
Running Girl Geek Academy today
Sarah Moran
Co-founder & CEO
Learned to code at five, got pushed out of tech in Year 10, and has been fighting to stop it happening to other girls ever since.
Read Sarah’s story →Lisy Kane
Co-founder & games producer
Award-winning videogames producer who started SheMakesGames and co-built AI High.
Read Lisy’s story →Amanda Watts
Co-founder & chief hipster
The artist behind Girl Geek Academy’s brand, from pixels to paint, and owner of branding agency Design Junkies.
Read Amanda’s story →April Staines
Co-founder & chief maker
Chief maker: 3D printing, props and droids, and co-author of Girl Geeks: Making Magic.
Read April’s story →
Also a co-founder
Tammy Butow
Co-founder & Empress of Chaos
Chaos engineer who sat the five of us down in 2014 and said: we’re starting a company.
As seen on…
TV and radio — including ABC Breakfast, ABC News, ABC Pacific (Beyond Awesome), Download This Show, The Project, Scope and The Today Show.
Our community
Get ya geek on with us
From MissMakesCode workshops to #SheHacks and beyond — explore our programs, or partner with us to bring them to your school, workplace or community.