About the Girls' Programming Network

What is GPN?

Students learning The Girls' Programming Network (GPN) is a program developed and run by girls and for girls. Managed by a group of female IT students (both from the University of Sydney and elsewhere), it's targeted at high school girls interested in IT, particularly those interested in learning to program or improving their software development skills.

One Saturday each term we run a workshop with an activity where you can learn about an exciting topic in computer science. Topics we explore range from Cellular Automata to Artificial Intelligence.

In every workshop we also look at the Python programming language. You will learn to program in Python and get hands-on experience writing computer programs that do what you want! Last year, GPN students put their skills to use writing chatbots that could enter a chat room and talk to participants.

Attending GPN is a great way to improve your programming skills for the HSC Software Design and Development (SDD) course as the tutors will cover the programming-related syllabus topics while teaching you to program in Python. GPN will also prepare you for the National Computer Science School (NCSS) over summer and the NCSS Challenge which runs in Term 3.

You will be able to learn at your own pace and level while working one-on-one with tutors.

GPN is also a unique opportunity to meet new friends with similar interests, find mentors, and find out about university life.

What is Python?

Students learning Python is an easy to learn programming language that can be used on many different computers and operating systems, including Apple Macs, Unix/Linux and Windows.

Python is perfect for explaining concepts in SDD and is the language used in the National Computer Science School and the NCSS Challenge. The University of Sydney also teaches Python in its first year course, Informatics (Advanced).

Think Python sounds like a soft kiddie-pool version of programming? Think again! Python is used in the real world by Google, YouTube, Yahoo, CERN and NASA. It's commonly used in web applications and for scripting in 3D Animation as well as in games such as Civilization IV and Eve Online.