Technovation Challenge encourages participating groups to develop a mobile application to solve a problem in the world. During four months, girls between 10 and 18 years have worked on their projects and now comes the moment of truth: the assessment of the app and marketing, communication and business plan they have developed.
The final for senior teams will take place on Saturday 6 May in a simultaneous event in Madrid and Barcelona. Junior teams will be evaluated in Madrid on May 6 and May 12 in Barcelona. The winners will participate in the international semifinal. Their works will be evaluated by a virtual jury with women from all over the world, who will choose the best proposals. The winners will travel to San Francisco, USA, in August for the final phase. The teams compete for prizes between 2,500 and 15,000 dollars.
The finals in Barcelona will be:
- Final for senior teams: Saturday, May 6, from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm at CaixaForum.
- Final for junior teams: Friday, May 12, from 5.30 to 8.30 pm, at the Mobile World Center.
In Catalonia and Spain 370 girls have participated in 79 teams, with the support of 120 mentors. During this learning experience, teams have worked in any of these six areas, inspired by the Sustainable development goals of the United Nations: Poverty, Environment, Peace, Equity, Education and Health. 50 of the 79 participating teams have managed to finish the challenge and present their work (24 in Barcelona and 26 in Madrid), and they will be evaluated on 6 and 12 May.
For more information, please see the section on Technovation in the website of the Associació Espiral Educació i Tecnologia, national ambassador of the program.
Technovation arouses the interest of girls in technology and digital entrepreneurship
The European Commission says that women represent only 30% of workers in ICT in the European Union. Therefore, there is much work to do to encourage young women to go for technical careers. Technovation contributes its bit, as the data collected in previous editions of the program show that there is a 78% increase in the interest of the girls involved in Technovation in the field of technology and 70% of the digital entrepreneurship.
Thus, 67% of them expressed interest in leading the business world at the end of the program and 58% of participants initiate studies in the field of technology. In addition, 73% of mentors claims to have expanded their professional network through Technovation Challenge.