MassMutual is bringing Girls Who Code, a national group aiming to bring more young women into lucrative tech careers, to Springfield this summer.

It is the first time Girls Who Code will be in Springfield. The program is expanding 19 seven-week summer immersion programs that served 375 girls in 2014 to 60 programs reaching 1,200 girls in 2015.

The program begins June 29 and is open to high school girls entering their junior and senior years. Sign-ups run from Jan. 15 through Feb. 1, and more information is available at www.girlswhocode.com. The program will take place at MassMutual’s headquarters on State Street. There is no cost to the girls.

According to the website, this is the only Girls Who Code session in Massachusetts this summer.

“Our goal at Girls Who Code is a very small one – to close the gender gap in computer science,” said Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code.

And coding, writing computer programs, designing mobile apps or other high-level computer science tasks are all rapidly becoming necessities not just in work but in life.

“It’s simply a 21st century skill set. It is how you are going to lead the way,” Saujani said.

Nationally, the percentage of female computer science majors has fallen from 37 percent in 1984 to just 18 percent today. The gender gap persists in the workforce, where less than a quarter of technical jobs are filled by women.

Girls Who Code says that there will be 1.4 million computer science jobs filled by the year 2020. If half those jobs, 700,000, are to go to women, about 4.6 million adolescent girls will need computer science education over the next few years. Evidence indicates that only about 30 percent of the young people introduced to computer science continue on with that education and enter the profession.

But why are fewer women entering computer science?

Saujani said a lot of it has to do with images in the media.

“What were the media depictions of science back in the 1980s and 1990s? ‘Weird Science?’ ‘Revenge of the Nerds?’ Computers were marketed to boys,” she said. “I became a lawyer. Why? ‘LA Law’ and other shows played a role. There I saw smart powerful women impacting the world by becoming lawyers. We really believe you cannot be what you cannot see.”

In today’s media world, Saujani wants girls to see more female computer coders and high-tech entrepreneurs in social media. Twitter, Facebook and other media are where girls get their messages today, she said.

For MassMutual, Girls Who Code fits in with both the company’s commitment to education and to its desire to grow the next generation of its work force here in Springfield. MassMutual has more than 1,000 IT employees locally, said Anne-Marie Szmyt, vice president, MassMutual IT Professional Services.

“It is in our best interest to build a repository of people who are ready to apply those skills in the workplace,” Szmyt said.

Saujani said girls interested in participating are asked what they want to do with their skills. Do they have a project or problem they want to address? Examples in the past have included a girl with an obese mother who wanted to develop a cell phone app encouraging better nutrition.

At MassMutual, the girls will get to meet women in the industry and get exposed to aspects of the business including mobile apps and robotics.