There's a massive gender gap in STEM, and Girls Who Code is on a mission to close it. But the biggest challenge is that girls don’t see themselves in coding.They think it's a boring boy’s club.

Our brief was to get girls interested in coding and show them its important role in culture. But the reality is, there’s a thousand things that girls care about more than coding. And Doja Cat happens to be, like, 999 of them. So to get girls interested, we hacked their viewing habits by creating the world’s first ever codeable music video in partnership with Doja Cat herself.

The short term objective was to show girls the fun and creative opportunities STEM has to offer. The long term objective was to create a shift in the stereotypical image of what the opportunities in tech can be—inspiring more women to pursue computer science as a career.

Girls don’t see themselves in coding. They think the tech industry is a bunch of white dudes in hoodies. Which means millions of girls are missing out on careers that tech bros are making millions from.

To help close the gender gap in STEM, we collaborated with gen-z’s favorite pop star to introduce girls to coding in a way that felt relevent to them. DojaCode showed girls the fun and creative opportunities STEM has to offer, and highlighted the opportunities Girls Who Code can give them. By showing them the possibilities that coding could unlock, we created a shift in the stereotypical image of what the opportunities in tech can be—inspiring more women to pursue computer science as a career.

To get more girls interested in coding, we teamed up with Doja Cat to create the world's first ever codeable music video. The video for Doja’s hit single ‘Woman’ became DojaCode, an interactive experience that puts girls in the director's chair. Using snippets of introductory code, girls could manipulate hundreds of music video elements, from changing nail designs, to controlling the sky, to manifesting Doja herself out of thin air.

This first-of-it's-kind experience was more than simply entertainment, it was educational. It introduced countless girls to 3 coding languages – CSS, Javascript, and Python — and did so in a fun, engaging and meaningful way that empowers the next generation of female software developers.

How do you get GenZ girls interested in coding when it's quite literally at the bottom of their interest list? When we talked with our GenZ panel, girls across the country told us they dont think about coding because they don’t know how it’s relevant to their lives. We needed to show teens that coding is culture and to make the user experience fun enough that they walked away wondering, "what else could I code?"

Collaborating with Doja Cat, one of GenZ's most beloved and popular artists, we were able to reach girls where they already were. Embedding a Coding 101 lesson within Doja's music video, we proved to girls everywhere that coding and culture are one in the same — that music, art and creativity are fundamentally linked to coding.

We set out to change girls’ perceptions of code by combining the world of code with the world of Doja Cat. We worked closely with Doja Cat’s team and Active Theory to use graphic and UX design to transform Doja’s music video into an easy-to-use experience that teaches girls to code. We also took coding - typically desktop-only - and translated it to mobile, where our target audience lives.

Dojacode.com is an interactive experience that lives on its own website on desktop and mobile. We posted about it via social and enabled users to share their coded creations on social too. DojaCode introduced countless girls to coding while significantly increasing Girls Who Code site traffic and newsletter signups. The work launched in December 2021 with Doja Cat’s ‘Woman’ music video, and is still running today.

Over 150,000 people coded the video within just the first week. Thousands were capturing and sharing it. They were freaking out on TikTok, losing it on IG. In the first two weeks, DojaCode garnered $10M in earned coverage—all with zero paid media behind it.

DojaCode introduced countless girls to coding while significantly increasing Girls Who Code site traffic and newsletter signups. But most importantly, we changed the perception of coding and allowed girls to experience it's power through creativity, art and music. By helping girls understand that coding goes beyond hackers in hoodies, we inspired the next generation of females in STEM.