Technovation Girls, a flagship program of non-profit Technovation, is the world’s largest global tech entrepreneurship competition for girls. The program offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the skills to emerge as tech entrepreneurs and leaders.
Every year, Technovation Girls challenges girls from 10 to 18 years of age to build a business plan and mobile app that will address a community problem. Since 2009, more than 23,000 girls have participated from more than 100 countries.
Working in teams of up to five girls, supported by mentors, students go through four stages of launching a mobile app startup, inspired by the principles of design thinking:
Ideation — Identify a problem in the community
Technology — Develop a mobile app solution
Entrepreneurship — Build a business plan to launch the app
Pitch — Take the business to market
Technovation Girls Waterloo
Over 12 weeks, teams with one to five members, along with a mentor, learn how to develop a concept for an application addressing an issue or need identified in their community, map out a business plan, and create a prototype app — all while learning the basics of marketing and programming.
Ideally, all girls on a team should be from the same school. They should have a sponsoring teacher, who can facilitate organizing the team.
Teams will be paired with men and women mentors who work in technology from companies in and around Kitchener-Waterloo.
Meetings
Teams are responsible for finding time to meet as a group weekly, either in person (e.g., at school, at the library, at a member’s home) or online (e.g., via Google Hangouts).
In addition, workshops will be held at the University of Waterloo and local tech companies that teach the skills needed for the challenge. These workshops are also an opportunity for participants to get to know each other and to interact at greater length with industry mentors.
See our Registration page for more information about workshops.
Live Pitch Event
At the end of the program there is a Live Pitch Event where teams pitch their businesses to local judges and compete for prizes. The top teams move on to the semi-finals globally online, where they will have a chance to win a spot to pitch in California.
Roles
Student — You are a girl in Grade 5 to 12 ready for a fun experience in a team of up to five amazing girls. You can commit at least four hours per week for the program (about 50 hours in total).
Mentor — You are a parent, teacher or professional working in the community. No coding experience is necessary. Mentors meet regularly with their teams, providing guidance, encouraging perseverance, problem solving and connecting them to the resources they need. You should be ready to commit 20 to 25 hours from January to April.
Would you like to see previous submissions to Technovation Girls?
Here are two submissions where you can see a team's pitch video, demonstration video and photo.
- Team Unite, which created an app called LeftOvers
Ready to take a step and get involved in today’s important global issues but still on the go? LeftOvers is an interactive app that connects volunteers, vendors and local charities and NGOs. The volunteers get live notifications for food pickups, vendors can post a food donation and charities can collect. Volunteer drivers, donors and charities all stay informed and enabled for optimal routing and delivery. Rescue food that would otherwise be thrown into the landfill. - Team TBD (Technology Brings Difference), which created an app called Byll
Byll logs an individual's environmental actions. A person will be able to track progression toward living a more eco-friendly lifestyle. A community leaderboard shows how well they and the rest of their community are doing. The app also includes a weekly challenge for extra points to further motivate people to do at least one good environmental deed a week. The challenge also shows how many people have completed the task, which shows how small actions add up.
Interested in joining the Technovation Challenge?
Participating in Technovation Girls is free. Find out how to register.
