Daniel Goodman / Business InsiderHere's a great idea for encouraging more girls to develop programming skills: get the Girl Scouts involved.
The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles (GSGLA) and Women in Games International (WIGI) are partnering up to create a new video game developer merit badge, reports Angel Thanatos on the GirlGamer.com blog.
The Boy Scouts created a similar badge in March, launched in conjunction with SxSW.
Girl Scouts will use E-line Media's Gamestar Mechanic, a learn-to-code online tool geared for kids. E-line will work with WIGI to provide a custom program that meets all of the merit badge requirements.
There's a desperate shortage of talented coders today and that gap is projected to grow bigger in the years to come. Yet, women, 50 percent of the nation's population, are being subtly and not so subtly discouraged from entering the field. Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the game software industry, where some of the stories of sexist treatment by women who work in the field are truly stomach turning.
Encouraging more girls to code games will help more girls discover a passion for this work. That will lead to more women entering the profession.