Chicago

Two students collaborate in a hands-on computing lab space at UIC

Thank you for your participation in Break Through Tech Chicago! Our program concluded on June 30, 2025. We appreciate your support of our efforts to create new pathways for students in tech fields.

Who Are You?

Why study tech?

Once you have expertise in computing and data, you can find a home for it in any field that interests you: marketing, transportation, health, urban development, social networking, or almost anything else you can imagine.

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115

Number of UIC students who participate in Sprinternships™ each year

Sprinternships are three-week micro-internships that give UIC freshmen, sophomores, and juniors a valuable first tech work experience that makes them more competitive for full-length summer internships. Learn more on our Sprinternships page.

600+

Our goal for the number of female CS and DS majors at UIC by 2024

Break Through Tech seeks to prepare more female and nonbinary students for great jobs in the tech sector by giving them the academic preparation they need: a UIC major or minor in a field such as computer science, computer science + design, computer science and linguistics, or data science.

Sarah Ather, UIC '19, an associate application developer at CNA

If you are taking your first step into the world of tech, know that it is OK to be scared, but do not let that fear stop you. Learn to develop your own perspective and value it.

Sarah Ather she/her

UIC CS '19, Associate Application Developer, CNA

Read Sarah's story

Join us

Break Through Tech Chicago partner organizations are on the forefront of advancing gender diversity in tech.

If you share our passion for creating greater opportunity for women in technological roles, explore how your organization can get involved.

100+

Number of employers that have offered Break Through Tech Sprinternships to date

Sprinternships pair UIC computer science and data science students with Chicago-area organizations for paid micro-internships in tech. Three weeks can launch a career. Find out more about Sprinternships in our guide for employers.

Being the only girl intern at a software-testing company made me want to show every male executive at the company that a girl can code, too. And, guess what? I did just that.

Heather Kuhn

UIC '18

Read Heather's story

Break Through Tech Chicago stories

All Stories & Insights

Story

Tracking the Pulse of Mental Health: How AI Fellows Used Search Trends to Understand Wellness Needs

In collaboration with Google, a team of Break Through Tech fellows took on a Challenge Project focused on mental health and wellness trends.

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Story

Signal from the Noise: Break Through Tech Fellows Build AI to Help Accenture Spot Emerging Trends

Accenture tasked a team of Break Through Tech AI Fellows with building a technology news monitoring and summarization engine that could automatically scan, analyze, and synthesize large volumes of tech news using cutting-edge AI tools.

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Story

From Confusion to Clarity: How Candogram and AI Fellows Are Streamlining Job Exploration

For students exploring potential careers, job titles can be more confusing than clarifying. That’s the problem Candogram, a visual job search platform, asked Break Through Tech AI Fellows to tackle in their recent Challenge Project.

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