Seventeen-year-old Cupertino High School student Suhani Singh and her 13-year-old brother Aaryaman grew up loving computer science and coding. The two have dedicated the last year to spreading this love for code around the world.

Suhani and Aaryaman are the founders of Code United Global, an organization that provides free online coding lessons to girls in the U.S. and India. The South Bay teens said they’ve always had an interest in coding. Their father works as an engineer, and his passion inspired them to pursue their own education in the subject.

“We love computer science so much,” Suhani said. “We’re learning it on our own and also in school and doing other things outside to keep learning.”

But a trip to India in 2019 turned their personal interests into a global campaign for access.

Suhani and Aaryaman visited their father’s childhood home in rural North India last summer. Suhani said she spoke with some of the other girls her age and realized just how different their lives were. “Talking about their lives really opened my eyes further to my privilege and how my education has been in the U.S.,” Suhani said.

She said it struck her that, although they were the same age, they were preparing for very different milestones. She was getting ready to apply for colleges, while many of the girls she spoke to were about to be married.

“I could have been another girl in [the village], but because my father came from the village and brought me here, I have a completely different life just because of education,” Suhani said.

She contacted a tutoring center there and made arrangements to begin teaching a class on the basics of computer programming. “Even small skills, like putting data into a computer, or just having basic technical skills, it can give them enough knowledge to get a job,” she said.

“I could soon see the difference I was able to make in them,” Suhani added, “and not just in skill but also the excitement, motivation, the sparkle in their eyes for a better future. So it gave me a different level of confidence and passion. And that’s why I decided to try to scale and create Code United Global to reach more girls.”

Suhani and her brother taught the girls in the village for about a year before expanding their efforts considerably this summer. They put together an executive team—complete with a public relations manager and people in charge of curriculum—and began to develop partnerships with outside organizations who shared their mission. These outside partners, which include the South Asian Workers’ Center and AstraHacks, help bring more new students into the fold.

The first class they launched as part of the larger Code United Global mission was “Basics of Coding,” which they offered to younger students in first through fifth grades. Suhani said getting all of the tutors and students together on a video call for that first class was inspiring. By the end of the class, they could see how excited the students were to have learned a new skill.

“When you’re done with a program, and you know that you made it by yourself, it’s really rewarding,” Aaryaman said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve expanded their mission, and more male students are joining the program. They say they’re trying to increase access to as many people as possible during this unprecedented crisis.

They tailor their classes to the age group they’re teaching: Younger kids create games, older kids may make applications. They draw a lot of their curriculum from public teaching resources online, and they’ve recruited a number of student tutors to help fulfill the need of their growing student base—although Suhani and Aaryaman continue to personally tutor the girls from the village, as their personal connection has only grown stronger over the last year.

The actual process of creating the organization and finding partners required a lot of work, and the siblings relied on adult mentors like their father to help guide them through the process and organize their financials.

But the fundamental love for programming is what keeps the project moving.

“Its vision and purpose are so close to my heart and my brother’s heart,” Suhani said. “We really hope to just continue to scale and reach more girls across the world in the hope to change their lives for the better by giving them more opportunities in this growing field of computer science.”