Inspiring Girls to Code: Role Models from Star Wars and CodeGirl
Where are the strong female role models that will inspire girls to embark on a technology career path? How can we make more young girls see that taking STEM classes can lead to important—and cool—professions? Several programs aim to answer the challenge.
This year’s annual Hour of Code program features two of the most popular female role models in any galaxy: Princesses Leia and Rey from the upcoming blockbuster film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” The star guides help students (or anyone) learn to program the new droid BB-8, along with R2-D2 and C-3PO, to complete space missions and build a Star Wars game using drag and drop blocks (ages 6 to 10) and JavaScript (ages 11+).
Code.org, a non-profit organization that encourages students to learn computer science, teamed up with Lucas Films to produce the online tutorial “Star Wars: Building a Galaxy with Code” as part of Computer Science Education Week held December 7–13.
For some real-life coding scenarios that make a difference, the Technovation Challenge is a mobile app competition for girls from around the world, ages 10 to 18, to develop an app that solves a problem in their local community. Teams compete for $10,000 in seed funding and support to develop their app. Since 2010, more than 3,000 girls from 28 countries have participated. Important to know:
- The submission deadline will be in April 2016. Further instructions will be provided by January 2016.
- Girls do not need to have programming experience to participate.
- Sorry, boys not allowed in this competition. However, anyone can access and use Technovation’s free online curriculum.
- Technovation recommends beginning the curriculum and preparing as soon as you are ready.
At the 2015 Technovation World Pitch Competition, the first place award for the High School division went to Team Charis from Nigeria with their app “Discardious,” a mobile solution to the problem of improper waste disposal. Team Pentechan from India took first place in the Middle School Division for their app “Sellexo”, an online marketplace for users to buy and sell dry waste. The panel of judges came from Yahoo, Yelp, Google, Hackbright Academy, and the Salesforce.com Foundation.
Watch for the upcoming documentary “CODEGIRL” for some inspiration from girls who tried to better their communities through technology—and where The Force is already strong.
