On Saturday, May 2nd, students exhibited technology at the University of Waterloo that tackled real-world problems, from helping Parkinson’s disease patients through augmented reality to creating an emergency alert system for seniors living alone.
These weren’t university students, but elementary and high school students, part of the Technovation Girls Waterloo’s Regional Pitch Event (RPE).
With more than 140 chapters worldwide, Technovation Girls aims to empower young women to become technology and business leaders. In 2018, Professor Jo Atlee, the director of the University of Waterloo’s Women in Computer Science (WiCS), launched the Waterloo Chapter to inspire girls and gender diverse youth to explore computing. Over the past two years, she worked closely with Samantha Jewett, the WiCS Outreach Coordinator and the Waterloo Chapter Ambassador, to recruit more participants from Southwestern Ontario.