Two coders.
Two continents.
Kavya and Farah ended up on the same data engineering team in 2017. The only two women on it. SOWCoders was their answer.
Farah (left) and Kavya (right) with Belenda, the cohort’s best learner.
- Forbes 30 Under 30
- Social Impact NA · 2024
- Harvard Innovation Labs
- LLX 2025–26
- Skoll Impact Lab, Oxford
- 2024–25
- Kavya Krishna, Ed.M., Harvard GSE
- 2024
A friendship
that became a movement.
Kavya Krishna grew up in a rural town in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, where opportunities for women were scarce. Farah Laurore grew up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Both made their way to the United States, and in 2017 they ended up on the same data engineering team at SiriusXM in New York City. The only two women on it.
What started as “women in tech” lunches turned into long conversations about the lack of support girls back home had to pursue financial independence. In 2018, fueled by that shared frustration and inspired by Girls Who Code, they used their own savings and vacation days to launch SOWCoders, starting with 40 girls in Haiti.
SOWCoders became an expression of what we wish we had growing up in Port-au-Prince and Bharatpur. We wanted to give back. The only thing we knew was how to code.
Kavya Krishna & Farah Laurore, co-founders
