Driven 2 Educate

Growing up a self-proclaimed nerd and with a passion for technology, Jennifer Wadella went through school wanting to be a graphic designer, not knowing that coding and web development was even an option for her. It was a male-dominated career path. Later, as a freelancer, she quickly learned that in order to get jobs, she had to teach herself how to code and build websites. When she got her first developer job at VML and recognized that working as a full- time developer meant being surrounded by guys only, she started her own organization to foster the addition of women into the field. With Kansas City Women in Technology (KCWIT), she wanted to offer support for gender-equality in the field of technology. It was her way to give back and bring like-minded women together. There were hardly any female coders out there, and that, to Jennifer, was not acceptable! She had to change direction to order to solve this problem in different ways. Through her organization she has launched techtalks, CoderDojo events, Codi