1,500 girls develop 362 APP

About 1,500 girls from around the globe developed 362
mobile apps in 2014, making Technovation the largest global
technology entrepreneurship programme for girls, it was
learnt on Monday.
Technovation is a mobile software development competition
specifically meant for the girl-child, and is currently open for
registration. The mission of Technovation is to empower
young women to use technology to make the world a better
place.
To further encourage the girl-child into adopting the use of
technology, Technovation representative in Nigeria, Mrs.
Martha Alade, said the Technovation 2015 challenge was
now open to secondary school girls between the ages of 10
and 18 who would work in teams of five to develop mobile
apps, conduct market research, write business plans and
create a pitch for funding.
“Each team is expected to work with a classroom teacher in
their school and a female mentor/role model from a
technology industry. Teams will compete in one of two
divisions: middle school or high school,” Alade said.
She said the age of the oldest girl on the team would
determine the team’s division, noting that top-ranked teams
from each division would qualify to travel to San Francisco
for the World Pitch.
“Technovation makes travel scholarships available to the
finalist teams who cannot cover the travel costs on their
own. At World Pitch, one winner from the middle school
category will be selected to win $10,000, and one winner
from the high school category will win $10,000,” the
Technovation representative in Nigeria said.
Alade added that Technovation’s mission was to motivate
and educate girls and women to solve real-world problems
through technology, inspiring girls to see themselves not just
as users of technology, but as inventors, designers, builders,
and entrepreneurs in the industry.
The ambassador for Technovation, California, Ms. Anar
Simpson, who spoke through a teleconferencing platform,
said that Nigeria had been successful in Technovation in the
past two years.
Simpson said that for Nigerian young girls to continue on the
success pace, they should remain focused and be confident.
She added that the young girls should be able to identify
problems and create the right apps to solve them.
“Technovation is a technology entrepreneurship programme
and competition for young women. Through its intensive
three-month, 50-hour curriculum, teams of young women
work together to imagine, design, and develop mobile apps,
then pitch their ‘’startup’’ businesses to judges,” Simpson
said.
Technovation officially runs as a three-month programme
beginning in January and ending on the submission deadline
of April 23, 2015.
According to a statement it made available to our
correspondent, the girls are taught life skills such as how to
identify a problem, design and test a solution, collaborate
with a team, and communicate to different audiences.
“It reinforces the following academic concepts: digital
representation of information, algorithmic thinking and
programming, and the societal impact of information and
Information Technology.
“Over this period, girls will be trained two hours a week to
develop a potential solution to a problem and programme a
mobile phone application to solve it. The app must solve a
problem in their local community,” the statement read.
“They will learn how to study the market, analyse
competitors, identify ways in which they can gather user
feedback and earn revenue. A teacher will guide each team
from their school and a female mentor from the high-tech
industry to support and act as a role model for her team,” it
added.