In 2016 I got a letter from Michelle Obama and she just told me how my
initiative Girls Who Code was amazing.
She just told me that to keep working harder and that I'm an
inspiration to all.
My name is Samira Mehta, I'm 10 years old and I love to code.
I created CoderBunnyz and CoderMindz.
CoderBunnyz is the most comprehensive coding board game ever,
and CoderMindz is a coding-based artificial intelligence board game.
I was 6 years old when I first started coding, and I was about six
and a half, maybe seven years old, when I first got the idea of
CoderBunnyz. So CoderBunnyz will basically teach you all the concepts
you ever need in computer programming.
There's, like, the very basic concepts like sequencing and
conditionals, to more advanced concepts like loops, functions, stack,
queue, lists, parallelism, inheritance and many others.
And I would say that CoderBunnyz teaches code in a fun farmyard
adventure. You basically do actions and you use your cards, or code
cards, to help your bunny eat its colored carrot and then reach the
destination. So there's different ways of teaching various concepts.
Once they're really excited about the game, then they actually learn
coding without even knowing it.
I am really passionate about coding.
I want the kids to be the same way, because coding is the future and
coding is what the world will depend on in the next 10 to 15 years.
So, if kids learn to code now then when they grow up they can think
of coding maybe as a career option.
I actually got introduced to code, to artificial intelligence,
because of my dad.
He actually works in the artificial intelligence field.
So CoderMindz teaches many major artificial intelligence concepts,
five in particular, and it also teaches a few coding concepts as
well. And it particularly teaches java programming, which is one of
the major coding concepts.
So I started selling the game, it was first available on my website.
And it was actually started - it was stored right here in my
garage, and we used to pack every order we got.
And when it started building up and we started getting more orders,
we were not able to fulfill that many.
So we were seeing if we could get it on Amazon.
And luckily within almost just the first year, we got it on Amazon.
My family is very much involved in my business.
My mom, my dad, my brother, we all have positions in the company.
So right now with that money it's kind of going back into fulfilling
more orders and making more CoderBunnyz boxes, but I'm also saving a
little bit of the money for my college education, and I'm also using
it a little bit to give back.
Particularly I started working with a few organizations that help the
homeless and so I'm starting to give back to them too.
So I've done workshops at places like Google, Microsoft, I've done it
at Intel.
So when I went to Google for Take Your Child to Work Day I did two
back to back workshops at Google Headquarters, and then I got to meet
the chief cultural officer of Google.
She inspired me to work harder and it was just a great moment in my
life.
So Girls Who Code is an initiative I started that basically teaches
underprivileged girls how to code, or just girls overall how to code,
and I do that by doing workshops in various places.
But I do majorly girls-only workshops, and that kind of bring girls
together and teaches them how to code so that when they grow up they
can think of coding as a career option.
And my goal is to just bring girls back into this field where there's
a big gender gap.
I want to inspire more girls to get into the coding, computer science
and technology field.
My dream job is being an entrepreneur and I would say I already have
it now, because I am an entrepreneur, but I want to expand on that
and I want to become an entrepreneur that helps people and does good
for the community.