The problem? Technology shapes our world, but only 12% of Computer Science degrees are earned by women.When we launched Made with Code, less than 1% of high school girls expressed interest in majoring in Computer Science.

So Google created Made with Code in 2014, connecting code to girls’ passions and dreams - and giving teen girls a reason to get excited about computer science. We built a web experience that became the hub for the Made with Code universe. On the site, girls can find inspiring role models and peers doing incredible and unexpected things with code, told through a series of mini documentaries.

Then we made coding tools less intimidating and universally available to all girls by integrating Google’s visual learning language, Blockly, and making it core to the experience. With it, we created over a dozen entry-level coding projects that connect to girls’ passions. We concepted each project alongside computer science education experts and made sure each project gave girls a fun and engaging entry point to code.

Girls around the country used the power of code to light up the 56 National Holiday Trees on the lawn of the White House with President and First Lady Obama, giving the National Tree Lighting ceremony a celebrated digital upgrade. They helped Zac Posen and Maddy Maxey design the first ever coded dress to walk the runway at New York Fashion Week. On World Emoji Day, girls created truly diverse emoji and later printed them on Starbucks hot chocolates. And we invited girls to change the meaning of Valentine’s Day by coding messages of unity and love.

Over the course of three years, dozens of new partnerships were made from working with Pixar to collaborating and amplifying the real-life story of female scientists in the movie Hidden Figures. And, most recently, we showed the power of code to impact the world through the Change is Made with Code program. First, girls used code to create empowering statements about the change they wanted to see in the world and shared them with global ambassadors at the United Nations General Assembly. We later announced a global competition in partnership with UN Women and nonprofit Technovation, inviting teen girls to code apps to address real problems in their communities. To date, 12,000 girls have applied for the competition and will pitch their ideas in August 2017.

So far, we’ve inspired millions of people to take their first step in coding (over 13 million unique visitors to MadewithCode.com, and 8.4 million coding project engagements). As a company, we have a long history of investing in initiatives that will bear no discernible short term games, but that will pay off big in the long term. Google may not directly realize the benefit of hiring more girl coders in just three years since program inception, but it will be well worth it when girls who got their roots in our program eventually become epic female engineers who join us and the tech industry at large.