About Technovation
Technovation is an international app design competition that is only for girls. It aims to encourage girls to participate in STEAM fields, specifically in the programming aspect of technology. Each year it challenges girls worldwide to ideate, design and create a mobile app that will solve a problem in their community.
My Experience With Technovation
This is my fifth year competing in Technovation. I was first introduced to Technovation when I was in eighth grade, my computer science teacher encouraged me to join the Technovation club in my school after observing my passion for robotics and electronics. I competed in the Junior division for one and Senior for two years in Turkey, and eventually developed my skills far enough to make it to Technovation's World Semifinals in tenth grade.
I see Technovation as one of the most important programs that I have been influenced by, because it encourages those who have never considered themselves to be proficient in STEAM fields to gain interest in technology. I was introduced to programming through this program, having initially joined the competition to work as a designer for the app. Despite my initial biases, programming started to seem more accessible to me after the first few months of working on our product. I observed as my peers gained the ability to create complex apps within moths was. Inspired by their progress, I took the role of programmer with my new team the following year and have been working to spread my passion for programming to girls my age ever since.
I see Technovation as one of the most important programs that I have been influenced by, because it encourages those who have never considered themselves to be proficient in STEAM fields to gain interest in technology. I was introduced to programming through this program, having initially joined the competition to work as a designer for the app. Despite my initial biases, programming started to seem more accessible to me after the first few months of working on our product. I observed as my peers gained the ability to create complex apps within moths was. Inspired by their progress, I took the role of programmer with my new team the following year and have been working to spread my passion for programming to girls my age ever since.
Technovation in Windward
For my STEAM scholars project for the past two years, I have been teaming up with my friend Phoebe from my junior year APCS class teaching girls at Windward to develop apps. Phoebe and I observed a lack of female programmers in the Windward community, with us being the only members of our Computer Science class. We decided to take initiative and create an environment where more girls can explore their interests in programming and technology.
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Creating the Team - Technovation 2019
Phoebe and I split our process into three main sections: Organisation and Establishment, Teaching Basics and Building Individual Apps.
Our first step was to figure out the logistics of creating a programming group in Windward. We met with Simon and a few other members of faculty and came to the conclusion that we would not be able to create a club, but we would be allowed to create a Technovation Team instead. After we established our location and materials we reached out to the Windward community and informed them of the new team on campus. Seven high school girls were able to make it to our set meeting times so we were able to establish a team of nine.
Once we had our team members, we spent the following weeks teaching them the basics of app development and creating a business plan. We taught Swift as our primary programming language and learned about the different types of businesses. After we completed covering the main parts of a Technovation submission, we moved on the the development of our individual apps.
We separated into two teams for our app development process and each chose a problem in our community that we could help solve with a mobile application. One team started with the fires in California and the other concentrated on cleaning up ocean waste. We started with a competitive analysis, researching for various products that tackled the same issue. As we analysed our competition, our team that selected the fires in California as their main issue decided to shift their focus onto poverty in the community.
Once we had our ideas, it was time to build our products. We created paper prototypes first and started writing our initial market plans. We completed the year by programming our apps with one app being coded with MIT App inventor and another being programmed in Swift. We did not submit to Technovation 2019 because we wanted the year to be directed towards learning more than competing.
Phoebe and I decided to continue leading the Technovation club on campus this with hopes of reaching even more girls in our community.
We reviewed our process from last year and chose to teach swift to our team members because it is a more complex and extensive language and ended up creating much more sophisticated apps than last year. We recruited even more girls than last year. The current Technovation club has 12 members, but there are currently 15 girls in the Windward community that have learned how to code through our club.
Something else that we changed this year was how we organized our meetings. A couple days before each meeting, we met and created structured lesson plans so that future Windward Technovation teams could lead Swift classes with structure and confidence. We wanted to create resources that girls could reuse in the future that would make Technovation a well-integrated part of campus life.
We met at least once a week for 5 months. Each day we focused on a different aspect of Technovation ranging from learning how to code, designing our visuals or working on our business plan. We tried to keep our meetings structured and interesting by creating traditions such as alternating snack weeks and following a book for quizzes. When we were quarantined, this structure helped us continue Technovation as the girls felt comfortable with the new lesson plans we had to offer. Ultimately, we produced two apps: Pool to School and FEM in STEM.
My team created PoolToSchool, an app that addresses the issue of traffic and parking around Windward by creating different carpool groups. The app encourages teams to carpool with various challenges and goals in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the WW community.
Phoebe's team created FEM in STEM, an app that encourages female participation in STEM. They were inspired by the lack of opportunities for girls to participate in STEM at Windward outside of the core science curriculum. Their app helps its users find the STEM field that would be most interesting to them via a quiz. Then, the user can find opportunities to explore that particular STEM field and learn about prominent women in that field.
We submitted both apps for judging on April 4th, making this the first year where Windward students have officially competed in Technovation.
I will be graduating this year, but I am sure that the Windward Technovation club will evolve to be bigger and better in future years. Technovation is one of the main reasons why I gained confidence in my ability to code, leading me to major in Computer Science in college. I will continue mentoring girls that compete in this event in the future so they can learn and grow through this opportunity like I was able to in the past five years.
We reviewed our process from last year and chose to teach swift to our team members because it is a more complex and extensive language and ended up creating much more sophisticated apps than last year. We recruited even more girls than last year. The current Technovation club has 12 members, but there are currently 15 girls in the Windward community that have learned how to code through our club.
Something else that we changed this year was how we organized our meetings. A couple days before each meeting, we met and created structured lesson plans so that future Windward Technovation teams could lead Swift classes with structure and confidence. We wanted to create resources that girls could reuse in the future that would make Technovation a well-integrated part of campus life.
We met at least once a week for 5 months. Each day we focused on a different aspect of Technovation ranging from learning how to code, designing our visuals or working on our business plan. We tried to keep our meetings structured and interesting by creating traditions such as alternating snack weeks and following a book for quizzes. When we were quarantined, this structure helped us continue Technovation as the girls felt comfortable with the new lesson plans we had to offer. Ultimately, we produced two apps: Pool to School and FEM in STEM.
My team created PoolToSchool, an app that addresses the issue of traffic and parking around Windward by creating different carpool groups. The app encourages teams to carpool with various challenges and goals in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the WW community.
Phoebe's team created FEM in STEM, an app that encourages female participation in STEM. They were inspired by the lack of opportunities for girls to participate in STEM at Windward outside of the core science curriculum. Their app helps its users find the STEM field that would be most interesting to them via a quiz. Then, the user can find opportunities to explore that particular STEM field and learn about prominent women in that field.
We submitted both apps for judging on April 4th, making this the first year where Windward students have officially competed in Technovation.
I will be graduating this year, but I am sure that the Windward Technovation club will evolve to be bigger and better in future years. Technovation is one of the main reasons why I gained confidence in my ability to code, leading me to major in Computer Science in college. I will continue mentoring girls that compete in this event in the future so they can learn and grow through this opportunity like I was able to in the past five years.