Founded in 2010 in New York City, GDI provides affordable programs for adult women interested in learning web and software development in a judgment-free environment.

As a result of the lack of acknowledgement of this incident by the GDI Executive Director and board members, another chapter leader decided to step down from her position[15] citing "race and feminism and the way organizations deal with being called out" as one of the reasons for leaving.

On December 3, 2018, further allegations of racism towards women of color came to light, this time from a former GDI HQ employee[16] in an episode of the #causeascene podcast.

[17] In the episode, the former employee details many ways in which she experienced racism during her time working with GDI leadership, which ultimately led to her resigning from her position.

On December 7, 2018, various Chapter Leaders across the United States released an open letter to GDI HQ and board,[18] demanding change in leadership due to racism allegations.

[21] Former GDI chapter leaders, instructors, and volunteers created the hashtag #gdistrike to share updates and information about the controversy on Twitter.

Prior to joining GDI, Jallabah won awards for her work developing and executing the operational strategy for the Elwyn Baring Street Center.

[25]) There are five chapters of GDI, located in Chicago, IL, Washington D.C., Detroit, MI, New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA.

[27] The curriculum is hosted and constructed by the GDI community on the web-based version control repository GitHub and presented in a slide format, divided by topic.