Christina Roberts

In 2018 and 2019, fresh out of a career change, Christina Roberts was nothing short of a force of nature. Yes, she wanted to learn. She wanted to get into her new career, and she did it with relentless hunger. She wasted no time in using her newfound opportunity to make a difference.

She became a staple of Women Who Code, which is now Upstate Women in Software Engineering. She became an advocate to help women change their lives and careers to move into technology — a field that offers the flexibility that can be life-changing, especially for single mothers. She became an advocate for teaching women in prison to code and to help create opportunities for them in technology when they were able to be released, tackling difficult challenges like learning without internet access or on an extremely limited time schedule with limited resources. She devoted her time to causes in technology that can help women in abusive relationships.

She spoke at events, got involved at meetups while helping others get involved, spoke at the Carolina Code Conference, while advocating for companies in the area to create internship programs to foster more opportunities to get people started in their careers.

For all those reasons and more, Christina Roberts is the 2019 recipient of the Jimmy C Award.