Ms. Nandini Sinha is the Chief Innovation Officer of SHARP Literacy in Wisconsin, helping students develop a love of learning and the skills they need to become future technology leaders. In this week’s episode of Let’s Talk Computer Science, Sinha joins host Sandhya Padala to discuss the diversity and equity challenges facing STEM and what her company is doing to tackle them.
As a child, Nandini knew that education would lead to endless opportunities, particularly in STEM-related careers. She uses her experience and knowledge at SHARP Literacy to empower students with the same mindset. Since joining the company in 2012, Sinha has seen SHARP Literacy evolve from a visual arts program to one that focuses on exposing students to tech-forward subjects. Students as young as third grade learn coding skills through SHARP Literacy’s after-school and summer programs, such as Design to Code, which teaches the foundations of coding. SHARP Literacy also collaborates with the Milwaukee School of Engineering to help students gain practical experience. Sinha believes early exposure to computer science education could help reduce the gender, economic and opportunity disparities in STEM. Based on the philosophy of “teach them young”, SHARP Literacy serves approximately 1600 students in the state of Wisconsin. The organization is looking forward to reaching more children as it expands its footprint.
