Kimberly Bryant

Kimberly Bryant was born on January 14, 1967, in Memphis Tennessee. She grew up as a self-proclaimed “girly-girl” with aspirations to become a lawyer that was later geared towards engineering due to her strong academic performance in both math and science. She earned her Bachelor’s of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University. At Vanderbilt, she studied high voltage electronics but felt culturally isolated as she pursued her studies. Her grit and resilience granted her the opportunity to enter the workforce and land jobs as an Engineering Manager at Westinghouse Electric and later DuPont. She made the switch from electrical companies to biotechnical companies working in the corporate ecosphere of Silicon Valley. She then moved on to Fortune 100 pharmaceutical companies of which, Pfizer, Merck, and Genentech.

After experiencing the underrepresentation of women in the technological industry, Bryant went on to leave Corporate America and found, Black Girls Code, her own company. Black Girls Code is a non-profit organization charged with teaching computer programming to school-age girls in after-school and summer programs. The program is based in San Francisco with a goal to teach one million black girls how to code by 2040, inspired by her daughter’s interest in the computer programming. The program has already made strides towards its goal of one million and has trained 3,000 girls and is looking to expand in other cities across the globe.

Kimberly Bryant has been recognized as a the CNN 10: Visionary Women, a White House Champion of Change for Tech Inclusion, one of the 25 Most Influential African Americans in Technology and a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow among a number of other honors. She serves on the Champions Board of the National Girls Collaborative Project and the board of the National Center for Women & Information Technology’s K-12 Alliance. She has already made great strides as a Black STEAMer and continues to be on the rise.

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