“The Competition” – Techgirls (formally The Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero) Competition.

“The Program”- Techgirls Competition.

“Girl/Female” – Any female, or individual identifying as female, gender fluid, or nonbinary. (This is a standing definition, whenever the Tech Girls Movement Foundation refers to Girl/Girls/Female this is the intended meaning). Relevant to students, mentors, judges, etc.

“Mentor” – Any female working in a STEM-related field, who has applied to work with a team during the competition. The mentor role is a voluntary role.

“Technical Mentor” – Any female or male working in a STEM-related field, who has applied to be a technical mentor. The technical mentor role is a voluntary role.

“Judge” – Anyone working in a STEM-related field who has applied to judge entries in the competition. The judge role is a voluntary role.

“Competition Entry Fee” – the fee payable to the Tech Girls Movement Foundation for each students’ participation in the competition.

“Fee Waiver” – Those students/schools that have applied for “fee-free” entry into the competition, and it has been granted by the Tech Girls Movement Foundation.

“Winners & Finalists” – Those teams awarded based on a combination of allocated scores in the judging period using the judging rubric, community impact of their app, and best fit to the criteria of the competition.

Competition Launch: 8th March 2023

Registrations Close: 22nd April 2023

Program Commencement: 2nd May 2023

Submissions Due – Friday 29th July 2023 @ 5:00 PM AEST

Judging: During August 2023

Winners and Finalists announced, and showcase events: During September 2023

The earlier you register, the more time you will have to work through the curriculum. We recommend starting as early as possible.

Teams can register after April but we cannot guarantee that we can match late teams with a mentor.

Week 1 of the program officially starts on May 1, and teams have 12 structured weeks, plus one additional week to complete the program. Note that late entrants may not have enough time to complete all tasks. We can not guarantee the allocation of an industry mentor to late registering teams.

The competition is open to any female or individual identifying as female, gender fluid, or nonbinary between the ages of 7-17.

Most teams meet at schools and are facilitated by school teachers. In some cases, parents and other community leaders step up to facilitate teams.

As a first step, the student should see if she has friends/classmates who would be interested in forming a team. In the case that there are enough students to form at least one team at the school, the students should then look to find a teacher(s) who can volunteer to facilitate the program, and be their coach. If there is not enough interest from one school, students can also form teams from multiple schools and find parents to facilitate.

Teams can consist of up to five female students from Australia and/or New Zealand, and can be a mixture of female students from different schools and different grades.

The Competition costs $50 per student to register. This fee was introduced in 2019.

Fee Waiver – Any girl/school that may need help with the registration fee can complete a Fee Waiver Application. Provide us with a short explanation and we can help you out. Only approved applications will be deemed fee-free. All applicants will be notified by return email.

No prior programming experience is necessary for students or mentors. Participants learn some basic computer programming principles as they complete the course, but they don’t need to become expert software developers to be able to participate.

Students rely on their mentors not to know all of the answers, but simply to help them figure out how to find the appropriate answers. Most of our mentors are not all software engineers, they are dedicated professionals and positive role models who are eager to help young women learn new skills and build their confidence.

Each team will consist of a team of up to five girls (ages 7 to 17), a safe place to meet, a laptop with an internet connection, and a smartphone or tablet. We recommend a minimum of 3 girls in a team.

There is no maximum; every school can enter as many teams as they wish. The more, the better! As we recommend a minimum of 3 girls per team, we find that with a healthy number of students involved, the girls tend to keep each other excited and engaged during the season.

That is the winning question! We recommend the following as a minimum time commitment for each team:

• A weekly 1 hour team meeting with your coach.
• A weekly 1 hour team meeting with your mentor.
• Weekly 2 hours minimum working on activities either as a group or individually.

Remember that some teams have spent between 80-100 hours on their competition entries, so the time spent is up to you. Time alone, however does not make a winning entry. Our judges are looking for creativity in the problems you are trying to solve.

We recommend teams use either MIT AppInventor, AppyBuilder, Thunkable, or App Lab for your app development. All of these are free, web browser-based tools. Please note that each tool has different pros and cons, so choose the platform that best suits your needs and environment.
Note that MIT App Inventor is used to develop Android apps only, and Thunkable is used to develop IOS apps and cross-platform apps. AppLab does not have back end functionality, used mostly to develop the app user interface to be accessed in a web browser. Both AppInventor and Thunkable can produce fully functional prototypes and apps to be deployed on the Google Play Store or the Apple Store. Age Restrictions: Children under 13 are not permitted to use Thunkable. Children under 13 can use MIT AppInventor, AppyBuilder & AppLab as long as the account is registered by an adult and use is supervised.

The ownership of all intellectual property (IP) developed through the competition remains with the teams involved in developing it. The Tech Girls Movement Foundation does not require ownership over any part of competing teams’ apps or associated IP.

The Tech Girls Movement Foundation does require copies of all pitch videos and demo videos. These will be made public for promotional purposes, and as such, will become the property of the Tech Girls Movement Foundation. We recommend minimising the use of identifying information in the videos such as school uniforms and surnames.

Having at least a baseline knowledge of how to code is helpful, but not necessary to mentor. What’s most important is that mentors are willing to learn alongside the students and help them through the problem-solving process. Mentors are also provided with guidance to provide support in subject areas they may not be familiar with. We will also provide technical mentors to help teams. We want mentors to be positive role models and to inspire the girls.

NOTE: All team mentors are female because we want girls to have access to positive female industry role models during this program. For any interested men, we invite you to join as a technical mentor

If you are located in Australia – yes you do. Apply/Renew here. We need to view a copy of your valid card/application before you can participate as a team mentor in the program. In 2021 all New Zealand mentors will need to undergo Police Vetting in line with best practice and the Vulnerable Children’s Act.