June 28, 2018
First, the toy brand has unveiled Robotic Engineer Barbie, a doll to encourage interest in science, technology, engineering and math, fields where young women are generally underrepresented.
Through a multi-year partnership with Tynker, Mattel is also launching six free Barbie-inspired coding courses, which are available at tynker.com/BarbieYCBA.
The course load explores, logic, problem–solving and coding fundamentals with Barbie branding.
“For almost 60 years, Barbie has exposed girls to roles where women are underrepresented to show them that they can be anything,” says Lisa McKnight, general manager and senior vice president, Barbie. “By playing with Robotics Engineer Barbie on and offline, we are giving girls a new platform for play in their imaginary world and teaching them important skills for their real world.”
Additional Barbie/STEM-related endeavors include:
A partnership with Black Girls Code, that will see Barbie providing a grant of support to Black Girls Code and handing out dolls at robotics workshops to reach young girls interested in developing skills in the field; and
Code Camp for Barbie and Friends
, an introductory coding e-book in association with science professor and coder Casey Fiesler, that will be available on Amazon.com.
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