Naia Johnson knows what it’s like to feel outnumbered.
“I have a computer science program at my school but I’m one of five girls in my class and of all the Black girls, I’m maybe one of two.” Naia explains. “It’s never deterred me, though — if anything, it has made me want to do better.”
Naia is a high school senior at Oakland Technical High School as well as a student at Google’s Code Next Lab in Oakland, a free computer science education program aimed at preparing and uplifting the next generation of Black and Latinx tech leaders. Naia is the first Code Next student to facilitate a workshop — she’s currently leading a virtual “Creative Coding” club for other Code Next students.
“I’ve always had an idea of running my own business,” Naia explains “Before Code Next, it wasn’t so tech-focused, but there was always this idea that I was going to do something, [that] I was going to be somebody and that I was going to make that happen.”
At Code Next, Naia works with Amber Morse, the lab’s Community Manager. “I try to stay as relevant and creative as possible to continue to keep [students] engaged,” Amber says. “There is so much light, vibrancy and possibility already being met in Oakland, so fostering community doesn’t take much.”
Both Amber and Naia are working within Code Next and the Oakland community to reshape what the tech industry looks like — and more precisely, who it works for. For Women’s History Month, we asked Naia and Amber to interview one another so we could get to know them, and their work, a little better.
