What we do:
Through an intensive curriculum, teams of young women ages 10-18 learn skills they need to emerge as tech entrepreneurs and leaders by working together to imagine, design, and develop mobile apps, then pitch their “startup” businesses to investors. The program theme challenges young women to develop an app to solve a real problem in their community by building both a mobile app and business plan to launch that app, supported by mentors and guided by curriculum, which are inspired by four principles of design thinking: Ideation, Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Pitch.
The Global Technovation Challenge is a technology entrepreneurship program and competition for young women and is the largest and longest-running global technology competition exclusively for girls to inspire the pursuit of STEM.
Because Technovation’s curriculum teaches both technology and entrepreneurship, the program is accessible for beginner computer science students yet still challenging for advanced students. No prior programming experience is necessary for students. Teachers supervise the girls while they work independently and with their mentors on Technovation’s online course. At the culmination of the challenge, teams pitch and demo their app to a panel of judges of prospective investors and industry professionals at our state pitch event, Appapalooza.