Colette W.

Colette Walravens is a Senior at Redwood High School in Larkspur, California, where she is a four-year Honor Society member and honoree in the California Scholarship Federation. As a singer/songwriter and AP Computer Science student, Colette is dedicated to teaching other girls to exercise the power of their voices to create positive change in the world. She is President of her high school's Girls Who Code Club, where she encourages other girls to explore coding in a supportive environment. She is on the Student Advisory Board for Girltelligence, an app that provides a safe space for middle and high school girls to connect and communicate about the issues that are most important to them. In addition to her advocacy work, she is Student President of Being Adept, a nonprofit that educates parents and students about drug and alcohol use and abuse. The project Colette is most proud of is "Herstory," an interactive timeline of women leaders from the 1500s to the present day that she built as her junior year Computer Science capstone. She programmed it in JavaScript using J components to create an interactive platform. It showcases the amazing women whose voices have been drowned out in the male-dominated history curriculum. She’s committed to elevating the profiles of women leaders and innovators in her studies and career. Colette’s hope is to study computing in the larger context of the humanities, and research the concept of “inclusion” from socio-economic, political, and technological vantage points. As a double major in computer science and gender studies, she plans to build a software tool -- and maybe a company! -- that will enable organizations to measure how "included" people really feel. Colette’s ultimate goal is to create impact and social change through innovation. While some people talk about finding “like-minded” people in college, she wants to meet people who challenge her views and push her to see the world through different lenses. Putting people with diverse backgrounds and mindsets together is the best way to solve the world’s biggest problems.