As president and CEO of Women in Technology (WIT), Penny Collins is passionate about seeing women and girls of all ages excel in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math)—from the classroom to the boardroom. In 2019, Collins developed the WIT Single Mothers Education Program, which provides supportive services, such as childcare, transportation, equipment, meals, coaching, and job placement in cybersecurity, for 40 disadvantaged single mothers (earning $30,000 or less) each year. The participants take a 12-week-long cybersecurity certificate course through Emory University.
The idea was sparked by Collins’s own personal journey of entering the workforce as a single mother. “When I first came to Atlanta, I did not have a college education and didn’t even know how to use a computer,” she says. “I was a single mother of two living in poverty and about to get evicted. I got a job as a part-time admin, and it was the women around me who taught me everything about technology. That’s when I decided that once I got on my feet, I would give back.”