Lead the Change - Make a Difference!

The importance for preparing for the future of work has never been more urgent and the sooner we start preparing for that digital future the more adept we will be as a nation to face challenges and capture opportunities. It is with this in mind that TUANZ with it’s FLINT programme are supporting the inaugural Technovation Challenge for girls and teams throughout New Zealand.

The underlying premise for the Technovation Challenge is to encourage and inspire adolescent girls to pursue interests (and ultimately careers) in technology fields. It does so by engaging girls’ teams in a competition. Teams of 2-5 (Juniors aged 10-14 and Seniors aged 15-18) work with a mentor to identify a community problem, create a mobile app to solve it, code the app, build a company to launch the app in the market, and pitch their plan to experts in 12 weeks.

This is a rigorous process but in an accelerated way for beginners to learn how to code and how businesses are created. Girls will learn AppInventor, a leading app development tool. They’ll also be taught life skills such as how to identify a problem, design and test a solution, collaborate with a team, write a business plan, and communicate to different audiences.
The process finishes up with team pitching and submitting their ideas (through video) and participating in regional competitions across New Zealand. Six regional winning Junior and 6 regional winning Senior teams will travel to San Francisco, CA and compete at the Technovation World Pitch event hosted annually in June. The winners of Technovation World Pitch will receive USD$10,000 in seed funding to develop and release their app in the market.

We believe there’s no better way than the Technovation Challenge to expose girls globally to the vast opportunities in information technology and prepare for skills and careers in the 21st century. For more detailed information please go to www.technovationchallenge.org or Contact Theresa Corballis, the NZ Regional Ambassador at technovationnz@gmail.com for registration information! #Girlsforachange @technovationnz on Facebook, or Craig Young, CEO of TUANZ (craig.young@tuanz.org.nz).

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