The 2017 Technovation Challenge announced the finalists for both its Junior and Senior divisions on July 5th. The Challenge finals to be held in Silicon Valley in early August culminate an initiative featuring over 11,000 girls aged 10-18 from all across the globe, 1,100 apps were entered to address one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) focus areas: quality education, climate action, gender equality, peace and justice, good health and well-being, or poverty reduction.
Technovation is a program run by Iridescent, an engineering, science, and technology education nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering underrepresented children into leaders, learners, and inventors. Technovation further focuses on technological entrepreneurship for girls worldwide.
The Founder and CEO of Iridescent, Tara Chklovski, talked about the competition in a press release, saying, “Our aim, besides the competition, is really to have the girls focus on what they’re learning in the program — the entrepreneurship, the coding and teamwork. But at the end, it’s even beyond those skills — it’s about honing their ability and tenacity to solve problems, perseverance and creativity.”
The teams have the support of over 2,000 mentors, including 85 volunteers from Google Made with Code. All of the finalist teams are meeting at the World Pitch Summit from August 7th to 11th, hosted by Google at their HQ in Mountain View, California to pitch their apps and ideas for scholarships and seed funding.
The Senior Division team finalists, their apps, and their category are:
- Poverty: 9 bits, Wishcraft, from Bengaluru, India
- Peace: /flash, QamCare, from Almaty, Kazakhstan
- Health: Team Ingenious ASPN, PregCare, from Noida, India
- Equality: Restorers, iCut, from Kisumu, Kenya
- Environment: Go WaCo, GoWaCo, from Almaty Kazakhstan
- Education: One step ahead, Armenian Sign Language, from Karbi, Armenia
The Junior Division team finalists, their apps, and their category are:
- Poverty: Cambodia Identity Product, Cambodia Identity Product, from Phnom Penh, Cambodia
- Peace: KeepCalmAndCode, 4Refugee, from California, United States
- Health: Dementia Care Companion, Dementia Care Compaion, from Jordan, Hong Kong
- Equality: Team ACT, Go Girl, from California, United States
- Environment: 3BigTomatoes, ZeroWaste, from Vancouver, Canada
- Education: Team Aspire, Lakshyashala, from Chennai, India
