*With a background in hospitality Sonja Sulcer loved utilizing her phone to read daily affirmations. Most of these affirmations were written by people who didn’t look like her, which inspired her to take a leap of faith and create an app with voices of women of color!
She talked to EUR about how she boldly took on the challenge of teaching herself to code and enrolled in a coding boot camp.
WATCH Sucler’s full interview via the player above.
Despite studies showing only one percent of coding boot camps are African American, Sulcer described her coding class experience as diverse and well-rounded. Over time Sucler compiled a collection of quotes and then developed and launched Encourage Her. The goal of the app, is to inspire young women of color with daily affirmations and inspirational quotes. She encourages female entrepreneurs to submit quotes to be featured on Encourage Her.
Sucler didn’t allow the fact, she didn’t have a background in tech or coding stop her from pursuing this dream. She believes there’s hope for more women of color to get involved in the tech community. Plus, encourages the use of coding camps and said they’re a great way to overcome the intimidation and learning curve associated with tech related career ventures.
Encourage Her is available in The App store. For more details follow @sonjarzo.
Apple App Store Commitment To Supporting Black Developers/Creators:
– At Apple, we believe that apps for everyone should be made by everyone. There is much work to be done to level the playing field for Black developers, and we’re committed to doing our part to support this important group of creators
– The team at Apple is inspired by the vibrancy and diversity of its global developer community. These are core values to the company, and its programs reflect a commitment to making sure everyone has the opportunity to access life-changing technology
– Coding is about having a voice, and having the tools to share it with the world. Apple has several nationwide programs to help underrepresented communities build this capacity.
– Through its Community Education Initiative, Apple is working in communities across the country — from Nashville and Birmingham to Sacramento and Chicago — to expand coding opportunities to under-represented groups
– Since the launch of the App Store, an entire industry has been built around app design and development. In the US, App Store ecosystem now supports over 2.1 million jobs across all 50 states, including 300,000 new jobs in the past year, even amidst a global pandemic (more here).
– One of the biggest benefits the App Store provides is we take on many of the traditional back-of-house functions that heavily burden small businesses. For example, we work with local governments to ensure our billing is legal and secure for our developers — an investment no small company would have the ability to make. We make it easy for developers to offer convenient and secure payment choices to their customers, wherever they are in the world.
– Developers also receive free marketing opportunities through our store design, including the Today editorial feature, personalized recommendations, search tools, top lists, and social marketing. All this helps to support the millions of successful apps on the App Store.
– We’re supporting more than 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities to help bring coding and creativity opportunities to their campus, and are proud that more than 100 community colleges now offer Develop in Swift to help their students create their own apps.
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