Across California, home of Silicon Valley, half of all high school students are Hispanic. Yet according to the 2022 State of Computer Science Education Report, only 22% of Advanced Placement (AP) exam takers in computer science are Hispanic. This data suggests a troubling trend: California’s largest high school demographic population is not participating in the computing education pathway at a rate equivalent to their peers.

To address this equity gap, Richert Wang, an associate teaching professor of computer science in the UC Santa Barbara College of Creative Studies, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Broadening Participation in Computing – Demonstration Project grant for a proposal that he co-authored with Kevin Buffardi of California State University Chico. At the heart of their project is a digital platform that prioritizes marginalized identities while offering free lessons and tutorials in computer programming.

“By providing this platform as an accessible free public resource, we are hoping to create a pathway where any student, regardless of what high school they attend, can have an opportunity to learn coding at their own pace, and relate with students currently studying computer science,” said Wang, who also teaches in the UCSB College of Engineering.