In the summer of 2012, Reshma Saujani kicked off an ambitious initiative, ‘Girls Who Code’, with 20 girls from varying ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds in a room in the Manhattan offices of Appnexus.

“There’s not a lot of focus on getting girls interested in technology,” the Indian American visionary told India-West during the first week of the program, noting that women comprise less than 20 percent of the work force at technology companies.

Five summers later, Girls Who Code has enrolled 40,000 young women into its program, which runs in every U.S. state. Girls learn the basics of coding, how to build a Web site or develop a mobile app, among other skills needed in the 21st century workforce.

High-school students enrolled in GWC’s free, summer immersion program spend seven weeks learning to code at the offices of the organization’s vast network of partner companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter. The organization also provides a free, after-school program for 6-12 grade girls to encourage them to think about a career in computer science.

“I want to close the gender gap in technology. The talent pool can look very different,” Saujani said in an interview with India-West Aug. 24, while on tour to promote a new 13-book series. “We look for girls who are not tech savvy, whose teachers may have pushed them to go. They may be skeptical at first, but then they create something that is relevant to their lives, and suddenly coding becomes fun and really interesting,” said Saujani, remarking that she herself was not tech savvy when she began the program.

One of her favorite GWC graduates is an Indian American high-schooler, Trisha Prabhu, who was being harassed online at school. While enrolled in a GWC program, Prabhu built an app called “Rethink,” which alerts users to rethink a toxic message before sending it out.

“Trisha is a leader. There’s no doubt in my mind that she will start her own company,” said Saujani.

Almost 90 percent of the girls who have participated in a GWC program go on to study computer science in college, said Saujani.

The first two books in the series – “The Friendship Code,” a story about young Lucy, who is trying to develop an app, but hindered by rivals; and “Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World” – were released by Penguin Aug. 22. The series was launched with a rally for women in tech, held at Union Square in New York.

Saujani will be reading in Chicago Sept. 11; in Washington, D.C., Sept. 18; and in Los Angeles Sept. 21.

“I’m hoping to inspire girls and build a global movement,” said Saujani, adding that the response to the first two books in the series has been astounding.

The former hedge-fund attorney, who also served a stint in the New York Public Advocate’s office, and was the first Indian American woman to run for Congress in 2010, noted that there are more than 500,000 open jobs in the tech industry right now. “The jobs of the future are also in tech. I want to make sure that women are there,” she told India-West.

“Diversity is a problem in technology, but girls are marketable,” she said, adding that retention rates of women in tech are also problematic. “We have to change the culture of Silicon Valley so that women stay.”

Former Google engineer James Damore unleashed a flood of commentary on workplace diversity when he suggested in an internal memo that the lack of women in leadership roles at technology companies was due to biological and psychological differences. Damore – who was subsequently fired – has hired Indian American attorney Harmeet Dhillon to represent him in a lawsuit against Google.

Saujani flatly refuted Damore’s hypothesis. “We know this is untrue,” she stated.

She noted the number of Indian American women working in technology in the U.S. “Women from India don’t face the same cultural issues. Technology is a perfectly respectable field for them,” she said, noting that her mother is an engineer.

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