Facts and figures
This working session was a great opportunity for participants to learn about entrepreneurship!
The second in-person Working Session at GHD was an exciting and informative event for participants in the Technovation program. It focused on the business side of their project submissions, helping both junior and senior teams learn about business startups and entrepreneurship. For senior teams, the goal was to draft a 5-10 page business plan, while junior teams worked on developing a user adoption plan. The session ran from 10 AM to 4 PM and offered a great chance for the girls to learn new skills and get advice from experienced professionals.
The day started with an introduction to GHD by Madeline Weber, the Events and Marketing Manager. After that, the junior and senior teams split for separate 30-minute presentations. Senior teams received an overview of business plans and their key elements, while junior teams learned about what user adoption is and its importance for their app ideas. These sessions provided a solid foundation for the teams to begin working on their plans. Throughout the morning, teams worked together to brainstorm and start drafting their respective plans.
The afternoon began with a panel of six women from GHD. They talked about their careers, their roles at GHD, and shared helpful advice for anyone interested in a tech career. This also gave participants a valuable glimpse into the range of roles available at tech companies, encouraging even those less familiar with tech that there are exciting career opportunities for them as well.
For the rest of the afternoon, teams got the opportunity to spread out across the GHD office, finding a variety of cool and comfortable places to work. Some teams continued refining their respective business plans, others worked on finishing their paper prototypes, gathering user feedback, or beginning coding their apps. This time allowed each team to focus on their specific needs and make progress toward completing their Technovation projects.
Overall, the Working Session was a great success. By the end of the day, most teams had fully brainstormed their business/user adoption plans, and had a much clearer idea about the entrepreneurship aspect of their Technovation project. With the presentation and advice they received from the GHD professionals, and with their completed brainstorm, the participants are now well on their way to completing the business portion of their Technovation submission!
A big thank you to GHD for hosting this event! It would not have been possible without all your help!
Madeline Weber (Events and Marketing Manager at GHD) giving an opening presentation about GHD
Liz Bradley giving a short presentation about Microsoft Copilot at the event
The panel answering questions at the event
The six panel members at the event
Liz Bradley answering a panel question at the event
Brooke Macauley answering a panel question at the event
Participant group photo at the event
"Silly" participant group photo at the event
Thank you to everyone who attended!
Thank you to everyone who attended our second in-person Working Session! An extra special shoutout goes out to our volunteers and GHD without whom, this event could not have been possible!
GHD staff (left to right): Brooke Macauley, Arshdeep Brar, Nicole Hu, Berrak Hurcan Aytac, Madeline Weber, Liz Bradley, Gabrielle Starodub
We were so excited to have so many of you join us at GHD, and we can't wait to see all your apps come to life in the coming weeks! We hope you enjoyed the event and had fun working with your teammates on your project.
Stay tuned for more weekly online workshops and monthly in-person working sessions, where you'll get the chance to collaborate with your team. Our next in-person Working Session is on Saturday, March 29 – more details will be shared soon. Keep up the great work, and we look forward to seeing your progress throughout the rest of the season!