We are now in Week 10 of the Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero competition with more than 1000 girls, and more than 200 teachers and 200 mentors participating, all with a chance to win a trip to Silicon Valley in 2019 for a week visiting the coolest tech companies on the planet like eBay, Google and Facebook!

Teams are in full entrepreneur mode, finalising their business plans, putting finishing touches on their app prototypes, and prepping their demo and pitch videos to “sell” their ideas. With only 3 weeks to go and on the last day of term, some of our teams met up with a bunch of really helpful people including our new partners at GWI!

Read what one of our dedicated coaches Nicola from Good Shepherd Lutheran College in Noosaville, Qld had to say – it looks like the 4-hour return trip was worth it! We love the snacks and the hugs parts 🙂

Note – you can ask us if you need help and we will connect you with companies 🙂

“This week has certainly been a highlight for our Tech Girls with the App Development excursion. On Wednesday, a group of very excited year 6 and 8 girls were taken in by a team of specialists at GWI Brisbane. They were shown around the new, innovative working environment and exposed to a range of roles women held within the firm. The girls were then spoilt with a beautiful morning tea before their TGAS mentors arrived to work alongside them until the late hours of the afternoon.

Many deep conversations about design, target audiences, minimum viable plans and programming were had. It was wonderful to watch the girls utilise boardroom whiteboards to map wireframes, engage in goal setting and task planning while working together collaboratively. The day wrapped up with group hugs, laughs and a sense of achievement.

A day well spent!”

On Saturday, Technology One HQ hosted some our participants in the 2018 Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero competition.

More than a dozen teams, some from as far away as Noosa (2 hours), joined this fun afternoon of entrepreneurship, mentorship and coding.

Fuelled by lots of snacks in the inspiring Village Green working space at T1, it was a pure joy for us to see so many of our tech girls, from 7-17 yo, working with their mentors in a safe, supportive environment, watched on by their parents and supportive teachers.

With only 4 weeks left in the competition, and teams now finalising their business plans, their app prototypes and their pitches, we simply can’t wait to see the innovations from our 200+ teams in this year’s competition.

Thanks to Tara and all of the mentors and volunteers at Technology One for hosting us for a fun and productive event!

Judging will take place in the first 2 weeks of August!

MEDIA RELEASE: Thursday 26 April 2018

‘Tech Girls Are Superheroes’ by the Tech Girls Movement stands up for what’s right and what matters – helping young girls to reach their dreams

‘Tech Girls are Superheroes’ Founder and leader Dr. Jenine Beekhuyzen today assured the community that she would continue to stand up for the next generation of young girls who were ready to join the tech girls movement – no matter what hurdles were thrown her way.

“Recently I’ve become aware of an initiative that is so similar to Tech Girls Are Superheroes that it’s making people look twice to see if it is the same,” Dr. Beekhuyzen said.

“I can assure my supporters and sponsors that this is not my work, and it misrepresents us and the good image of Tech Girls to benefit a profit-driven group.

“I am proud of the fact that we have helped hundreds of thousands of girls reach their dreams, and we have done it with the passion of young girls across the country, and the generous support of our community,” she said.

Jenine said while she supports programs that help get more girls involved in STEM, she was not about to let her good work and the work of her supporters be compromised or disrespected.

“We are a not-for-profit group that has worked hard to advocate for, and support thousands of young students to gain a passion for STEM and transform the industry’s future.

“It’s been my passion in life and I’m so proud of what I have been able to achieve working with so many amazing people who have shared my passion.

“Tech Girls Are Superheroes is not based on a desire to make money, rather it gives young girls who all deserve the opportunity to have a rewarding, interesting and challenging career, an opportunity to make a real difference in the world.

“It is time to rally our community, and I’ll continue to be a positive role model and stand up for what’s right,” she said.

Jenine encourages our Tech Girls Movement community to join the Real Tech Girls Are Superheroes campaign by:

Sharing the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M-P4CXL49E&feature=youtu.be
Visiting www.techgirlsmovement.org
Donating at gofundme.com/techgirlsaresuperheroes
Share the #realtechsuperhero

Media Contact

Emma Andrews

0411 339 911

Thanks to Technology One for sharing these great resources from our Superhero Daughter Day in Brisbane on the 19th of March

Hour of Code – for all ages

Introductory coding activity, where the girls coded a Star Wars themed game. We placed the girls into pairs and guided them through the online tutorial. We chose the Star Wars theme because all of the video tutors were women who had worked on the Star Wars movies in technical roles.

Magformers – focused on the 6-8 age group.

Ozobots Robotics workshop – for all ages

We used the Ozobot Bit robots, which allow programming by drawing colour-coded lines, or by using a Block-style programming language. Ozobots (purchase)

Virtual Worlds

We ran a number of Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality activities. We found that the age restriction was really about the size of the headsets – younger girls’ heads were too small for the headset to fit securely. The Jedi Challenge was also a bit scary for a couple of girls, as it’s a game where you fight robots.

Microsoft Hololens – for all ages – Pure AR activity, using the demo software that comes with HoloLens.

Star Wars Jedi Challenge – for ages 9 and up

Augmented Reality activity where the player has a lightsaber and fights robots.

Star wars (purchase) – https://www.jbhifi.com.au/phones/all-phones/lenovo/lenovo-star-wars-jedi-challenges-ar-headset/502683/

Design a character – for all ages

This was a pure design activity, where girls got to design their own character/avatar and take home a printout. Adobe Illustrator: https://www.adobe.com/au/creativecloud.html

Hack the room – for all ages

This was an escape room activity, where the girls had to solve a number of codes and problems to save the Internet. URL: https://lockpaperscissors.co/hack-the-room

It was my absolute privilege to speak to over 100 women and girls last week at Cannon Hill Anglican College for International Women’s Day 2018. The opportunity to speak about STEM education for girls is not just about closing historical gaps, it’s also about numbers that don’t lie.

We now have statistical proof that APAC companies with at least 20% women board directors have financially outperformed their peers every year since 2007.

Why does this happen? Research tells us it is the diverse perspectives we bring that improve the amount of money a company makes. When we’re in the room, we make a positive difference EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Before I continue I want to be clear that my goal in talking about the gender gap is to stop talking about the gender gap as soon as possible. Shifting the conversation to high performing companies managed by the best people is an exciting reality, but we aren’t there yet.

There are less women CEOs & Board Chairs in the top 200 companies in Australia than men named John, Peter or David

And some industries still have an appalling gender pay gap

Growing up in the US I always believed I could do anything. I wanted to be a doctor, a spot welder and an engineer at different times in my young life. But my life changed the day I sat down for my first Introduction to Computer Science class at university. Not only did I find out that I could build my own website but it was a woman teaching me how to do it. The programming classes that followed were not easy but I’d found my calling in the world of computers and technology.

My career choice has opened so many doors for me, but the reality is that girls are not pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths (STEM) in large enough numbers.

The top graph shows the percentage of male students graduating secondary school with STEM qualifications. The bottom is the same percentage for female graduates. This is despite the fact that STEM graduates earn more than non-STEM across the board.

Studies show that girls opt out of STEM careers as early as 6 years old and that is not only detrimental to our drive for balanced leadership but it is detrimental to the future prospects of Australia as we do not currently have even a quarter of the technology workforce required for the future of our economy.

As a Tech Girls Movement board member I’ve learnt that girls stop pursuing STEM for two key reasons:

1. They don’t have relatable role models.
2. They don’t know just how many jobs are actually available in science & information technology.

The Tech Girls Movement wants to solve these problems not with more talk, but with action. Each year we sponsor a 12 week app building competition that in 2017 saw almost 1800 girls across Australia and New Zealand compete. In small teams the girls plan, design, build and pitch an app that helps solve a problem in their community and our goal is to bring the total number of girls competing to 10,000 in 2020.

My daughter and I attended the announcement of the winners last year and the roar that went up in that auditorium when Pacific Pines was announced as the winner was so fantastically loud my daughter thought wonder woman had just flown into the room!

Want to get involved? Join as an official member today . Guest blog post by Amanda Rogers, WK Digital

register now to join us on the 15th March!

In March, to celebrate International Women’s Day, we will be joining the Global Cisco Network and the Women Rock-IT Program! We’ve been a fan of the Women Rock-IT program for quite some time because it profiles some of the really innovative and interesting work that Cisco and their partners are doing. The program also highlights the great contribution that women make to STEM.

We were delighted when we were invited to join Emma Reid on the 15th of March, along with many other countries in Asia. With up to 20 000 viewers in the audience online, we’re super excited that the event is open to the public, so you can register online to join the session.

What’s so great about the session is that our team SunFun (2017 National Primary school winners in the Search For The Next Tech Girl Superhero) will join me to talk about their time in our program, their successes, their challenges, and also where they are off to next before they join us for the Technovation trip in August in 2018.

So join us, tune in and listen to the adventures of some leaders of the future.

In the third episode of Women Rock-IT, we meet Dr. Jenine Beekhuyzen, a CEO, Entrepreneur, Editor, Author, Founder, and an advocate for diversity in IT.

Jenine runs her own business, well 3 actually, which is the last thing she ever thought she’d do. She studied at Uni to become an expert in understanding how people use technology and tried to combine this with a practical training for those who do research through her company Adroit Research.

Janine also founded a non-profit organization, Tech Girls Movement, to inspire young girls into tech careers. Through her non-profit, the search for the next Tech girls Superhero was born.

Don’t miss our live broadcast of #WomenRockIT as we meet Jenine and the winners of the 2017 Tech Girls are Superheroes.

Start date: Thursday, 15 March 2017 – Save Calendar
Start time: 12 pm (SGT), 3pm (AEDT), 9:30 am (IST)
Duration: 60 minutes (including Q&A)

REGISTER NOW

Happy New Year to all in our Tech Girls Movement community!

Let us start by asking, ‘what are your STEM goals for 2018?’

We are delighted to start the year with notification that our important research is being published in a top European academic journal, after being through a peer-review process over the last three years. The research based on the work by my Ph.D. student Elena Gorbacheva at the University of Muenster, examined high quality published academic literature on gender and technology. Specifically, it provides a critical review of the research published in Information Systems to date, and uses this as a basis to propose a research agenda for the future, including specific research questions that researchers in the field of gender and technology could pursue further.

I joined Elena on this project back in 2012 after a chance meeting with her supervisor at a conference in Barcelona, where I won the most innovative research award called the Claudio Ciborra Award for the most innovative research (my Ph.D work). Out of that conference, this wonderful relationship with Elena formed. Elena then joined the rest of my research team (here in Australia) based at Deakin University, and we’ve published many papers over the last six years together, mostly evaluating the Go Girl, Go For IT outreach event for Victorian secondary schools.

Why this is particularly important for us is that Elena is one of our original Tech Girl Superheroes, featured in the original orange book as Equita. Another reason this is important is because this paper has been a struggle to publish. The topic of gender, within the academic discipline that we’re in, is not a widely accepted topic to study, and the value of it is often not seen. Therefore, we see this as a significant achievement to be able to publish this work in a high-quality outlet and to get it in the hands of the people who should be reading it.

Why this is so important to us is because research is key. The reason we believe the Tech Girls are Superheroes campaign has been so successful, so quickly, is because it is based on research that my colleagues Sue, Liisa, Annemieke, Jo, Julie, Catherine, Anitza and Elena, and others have all been doing over the past 20 years. This research states two main barriers to girls engaging in STEM: lack of visible female role models and a lack of understanding of what technology people do.

I’ve been fortunate to be a part of a variety of teams across different universities looking at girls and women across the STEM pipeline. From school-aged, through to university, and across industries. We have collectively examined the barriers to firstly engage, but then to also keep people in STEM education and careers.

We feel that an important contribution to the work that we undertake at the Tech Girls Movement is to have a comprehensive understanding of the research literature, as well as an understanding of the barriers to participation of women within technology and IT industries.

Author: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen, our Founder & CEO, who is also the founder and CEO of Adroit Research, a research consulting company which specialises in improving the quality and reputation of qualitative research.

On Monday, 13th of November, our Bully Busters team from Shelford Girls’ Grammar in Victoria, our primary school state winners in the 2017 Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero, visited The Age office in Melbourne. Fairfax Media, being one of our long-time partner organisations, offered the girls the opportunity to come into their office and meet their Chief Information Officer, Robyn Elliot.

This was truly a great opportunity for our tech girls to not only share details about the innovative App that they built, but to get great career advice on how to move forward into a STEM career.

We are super-proud of our Bully Busters team who created a solution to an important problem in their local community. They are proud Ambassadors of the Tech Girls Movement and are a great example of our bright future.

On Monday the 2nd of October, we hosted our first ever competition showcase in New Zealand. Thanks to Xero for hosting this fabulous event where many of our teams showcased the apps they built in the 2017 Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero Competition.

The event in Wellington was well attended by 60 participants from all over New Zealand. Some even travelled from Dunedin! Many of our teams presented the awesome apps that they built this year, with an added opportunity to talk directly with the community about the impact that their apps can make to the lives of everyone around them.

Our winning teams Evac-u-buddy from Wellington and Drink Minder from Hamilton presented their apps to the eager audience. Diana Jones, who donated prizes for the winning teams, was accompanied by one of our very won superheroes, Anna Divoli.

We have our second New Zealand showcase on Saturday, October 28th at SIGNAL ICT Graduate School in Christchurch. We would love to see you there!

Tickets are limited so Register Now!

We received so many incredible entries this year in the 2017 Search for the Next Tech Girl Superhero competition.

If you haven’t yet met our winners and finalists, you can find them here.

Our techgirls are building awesome apps to solve problems in their local community. Some apps will have more impact than others, thus we have established our inaugural Tech Girls Are Superheroes Game Changer Award for the team we feel at the Tech Girls Movement will have an extra special impact not only on the team’s local community but on society as a whole.

We see the apps our tech girls build as solutions to important problems.

This year the winning team of the Game Changer award is Team Helpa who created an incredible app and business plan to connect charitable homeowners to the homeless population. The team is from St. Aidan’s Anglican Girls School in Brisbane.

Their app allows the homeless to work in partnership with the community so stereotypes are broken and friendships built. People will outsource tasks directly to local homeless clients allowing a mutually beneficial situation. Users can negotiate their own rates of payment or exchange. This is a healthy way for the homeless to reconnect with society whilst productively putting their skills and hobbies to use. To create revenue, the team will sell merchandise, collect donations and show advertising.

Most of all, these girls want to make a change, one phone at a time.

I’m sure you will agree that this team of girls has set the standard very high with their concept, their app and the research behind it. We are sure you will agree that they are very worthy recipients of our very first Tech Girls Are Superheroes Game Changer App!

<br />