A team of girls build their mobile prototype using Android App Inventor
At the regional pitch night in Mountain View in April, I was floored by not only my team’s presentations, but by all 50 girls competing. It was hard to believe that these confident young women—with their solid business plans and app prototypes—had joined the program just nine weeks ago with no background in entrepreneurship or programming. My team pitched a social education app—a chemistry-based game like Jeopardy! that students can play with friends in order to prepare for tests.
This Saturday, May 21, marks the culmination of the program, when the regional winners will convene on our Mountain View campus for the national pitch night. Here, they’ll compete to have their app professionally developed and distributed on the Android Market by demoing their prototypes, presenting their business plans and ultimately convincing industry leaders that their startup is worth investing in.
The Technovation Challenge tackles the computing world’s gender gap head on, giving girls early exposure to tech in a fun, engaging environment that develops their skills and confidence. I’m proud to mentor high school girls interested in engineering and technology, and I hope their experience in this program today will inspire them to become the tech leaders of tomorrow.
Posted by Shubhie Panicker, Software Engineer and Technovation Challenge mentor