Which will be a free series of workshops this school holidays aimed at girls aged 6-15 years old - running from Monday July 9 to Sunday July 15. The workshops will teach skills including building a game from scratch with Girls and Games. A very cool initiative, that plays into some startling statistics.

Where out of the over 40,000 ICT jobs created in the past few years in Australia women account for less than 24% of the current IT worksforce. And only 13% of girls study STEM in grades eleven and twelve, and just 1 in 10 enrol into IT degrees. Fun fact, during the early days of the computer science and IT boom - and we're talking pre-colour monitors here - the division was close to 50/50. It was only marketing and recruitment aimed squarely at males that saw the seismic shift in IT in the ensuing decades.

Code Like a Girl is a fantastic initiative and includes the following workshops:

1. Design and Build a Website: this workshop will cover how to create and edit your own website from start to finish including HTML coding and styling using CSS3

2. Girls and Games: in this beginner coding tutorial participants will learn how to create their own personalised game from scratch

3. Coding Up a Storm: in this workshop participants will mix playing with learning and use Lego Mindstorms to learn core computational logic and concept

4. Creative Coding: this workshop will allow participants to draw and decorate their own digital art using data structures, selections and loops

Code Like a Girl CEO and Co-Founder, Ally Watson said the following, “It’s great to see a retailer like Microsoft Store supporting young girls as these type of opportunities aren’t regularly offered for free. It’s important that brands like Microsoft actively support the education of young girls in STEM, as it gives the next generation a chance to experience the amazing world of coding and tech.”

For more information, head to the official events page for details and registration - www.microsoft.com.au/codelikeagirl.