San Francisco, CA, May 17, 2016 — On October 21, Toptal launched Toptal STEM Scholarships for Women, 这是一个旨在授权和支持下一代女性计算机科学家的项目, software engineers, 并通过财政支持和指导相结合的方式帮助开发者.
今天，我们激动地宣布第五届奖学金得主， Rachell Calhoun, an English teacher living in Seoul, South Korea, 谁渴望在今年年底前转行，成为一名全栈开发人员. Rachell was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and moved to Korea to teach eight years ago, 2014年加入Python学习小组，开始学习计算机科学. Last fall, she became the organizer of Django Girls Seoul.
Rachell is a self-described “EFL teacher by day, web developer by night,但她对学习新技能的强烈欲望和无与伦比的职业道德使rachel毫无疑问将成为一名有成就的高级开发人员.
“Rachell won us over with her energy and determination,” said Toptal Director of Engineering Anna-Chiara Bellini, who leads the scholarship’s committee of judges. 她的干劲和动力给评委们留下了深刻的印象, which is apparent in every challenge she has undertaken to-date, especially in how quickly she grew Django Girls Seoul. Rachell’s intense drive to become a full stack developer, international outlook, 她对社区建设的承诺使她非常适合我们的文化.”
As a scholarship winner, Rachell will receive $5,为她的教育和职业发展目标, 以及来自Toptal网络的高级软件工程师为期一年的每周一对一的专业指导.
After 8 years working as an English teacher in South Korea, Rachell is moving back to Michigan, where she’ll continue to develop her coding skills. Rachell is currently working through Udacity’s Front-End Nanodegree Program and undertaking web development projects with Django and Python. 她计划在完成前端课程后，继续学习Udacity的全栈课程和高级web开发课程.
She plans on using the scholarship to enroll in more online courses, 她希望在她的韩国开发者社区缺席的情况下，依靠她的导师提供支持.
“我们很高兴奖学金的指导方面将非常适合雷切尔在这个过渡时期,” said Bellini. “这将为她提供她需要关注的方向，并发挥她对编程的热情.”
Becoming a Django Girls Organizer
2015年10月，rachel和她每周Python学习小组的同事们了解到 Django Girls, 这是一个非营利组织，汇集了来自世界各地有抱负的女性工程师参加编程研讨会.
坚信“作为社区的一部分学习比单独学习更好”,瑞秋决定帮助将第一个姜戈女孩工作坊带到首尔, 使更多的妇女和女孩对编程产生兴趣，并找到必要的支持系统，开始她们自己的项目.
雷切尔和她的团队创建了一个讲习班，重点是为初学者建立一个包容的环境, 并且不知疲倦地推动这项活动，以获得赞助，并在当地社区建立兴趣.
“I wanted to show that coding can be cool and fun, that it’s not something you have to do alone,” said Rachell. “我还想明确表示，我们欢迎任何提问，认为这是一个好问题.”
她的团队做得很好，引起了人们的兴趣，他们收到了来自11个不同国家的400多份申请, 最终汇聚了近70名参与者和30名教练.
Determined to continue building enthusiasm, 仅仅四周后，雷切尔帮助组织了一个名为“姜戈女孩X”的后续活动, 让参与者通过扩展材料和为期两个月的基于项目的编码营继续学习.
In a matter of months, the Django Girls Seoul community has grown like wildfire, transitioning from a one-off workshop into a series of coding camps, study meetups, 以及旨在激励和支持渴望成为工程师的女性的社交聚会.
“我认为我们社区如此热情的原因之一是其他参与者可以看到我的故事, and they know I’m also a relative beginner,” said Rachell. “I started from scratch and never thought programming was for me. Then I tried it, and I just keep trying new things.”
Through the Django Girls community, Rachell aims to give other women the same “chance at employment, upward mobility, equality, and the future” that she seeks for herself.
瑞秋刚开始学习编程才两年, 她现在已经在GitHub上贡献了她的第一个开源项目, Code For Everyone, and building both back-end and front-end projects. 她还为首尔其他有抱负的女工程师建立了一个重要的支持网络.
When asked about the future, she said, “I can’t see that now. 它在楼梯的顶端，现在我才刚刚走到前面的几步. I plan to keep learning, to keep changing. I hope to use my skills to help people without a voice, to give them a platform they didn’t have before.”
About Rachell
瑞秋总是在寻找挑战，尤其是在学习新语言的时候. As a student, she lived in Uruguay (to polish her Spanish skills), Quebec City (to complement her French studies), and Alexandria, Egypt (to work on her Arabic). She didn’t know much Korean before moving to South Korea, but began studying Taekwondo at age 10, 并从那里和一位朋友的韩国母亲那里学到了一些简单的短语. 她决定立即投入，订了一张机票，接受了一个为期一年的教学职位. Now, Rachell is ready for a new challenge, this time diving headfirst into software engineering, and bringing an entire community with her.
请和我们一起祝贺软件开发人员rachel Calhoun成为Toptal STEM女性奖学金项目的第五位获奖者!
About Toptal STEM Scholarships for Women
Toptal STEM女性奖学金是为女性提供的一系列12项奖学金，每月颁发一次，为期一年, with Rachell being the fifth scholarship winner. 世界各地任何教育水平的女性都有资格申请赢得5美元奖金,每年的一对一技术培训和来自Toptal高级技术专家的指导，以帮助他们追求成为未来专业软件工程师的目标.
The prior scholarship winners are Rojina Bajracharya from Nepal, Ana Sustic from Slovenia, Gabriela Mancini from Argentina, and Tondi Butler from America.
申请Toptal女性开发者奖学金，并了解更多有关该计划的信息, visit http://40n73t.mylifemytakaful.com/scholarships.
About Toptal
Founded in 2010, Toptal是硅谷涌现的发展最快、最具创新性的公司之一. With backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Silicon Valley’s famed venture capital firm, Adam D’Angelo, founder of Quora, Ryan Rockefeller, and other investors, 今天，Toptal连接了来自世界各地的数千名精英自由软件工程师和设计师,000 blue chips such as J.P. Morgan and Pfizer, tech companies such as Airbnb and Zendesk, 以及众多初创公司提供世界级的解决方案，以满足最复杂和最具挑战性的需求. Toptal的快速增长证明了客户需求的爆炸式增长，以及公司服务无与伦比的质量和可靠性.
Media Inquiries
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Toptal, LLC
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joellen@mylifemytakaful.com
