Technovation Girls Waterloo

Are you a girl who is ready to change the world?

Be part of the change! Technovation Girls is a free, 12-week program that equips girls and young women+ (including transgender, gender non-binary, and gender fluid) ages 8-18 with the skills to become tech entrepreneurs and leaders. With the support of volunteer mentors, students work in teams to code mobile apps or AI solutions that address real-world problems they've identified.

Learn more about Technovation at technovationchallenge.org

Waterloo Chapter overview

Women in Computer Science (WiCS) Outreach oversees the Waterloo Chapter of Technovation Girls, which supports teams in the junior (ages 13-15) and senior (ages 16-18) divisions. The chapter includes students from Cambridge, Elmira, Guelph, Kitchener, London, Stratford, Waterloo, and their surrounding townships.

For more details, please download our Technovation Girls Info Package.

Registration

Participants must be registered on the Technovation global site technovationchallenge.org to be eligible to enter the competition. To receive local support throughout the program, students also must sign up with our Waterloo Chapter.

Stay tuned for updates on the 2023/2024 season registration!

2024 Season Weekly Newsletter

Get updated on the exciting content for each week!

Newsletter Page

Monthly Workshops

Waterloo will be hosting monthly workshops that will bring local teams and their mentors together, and will provide some additional training and coaching from local tech and entrepreneurial experts. A side benefit of the monthly workshops will be to provide a forum for participants to get to know each other, see what other teams are working on, and to interact at greater length with university-student and industry mentors.

January 27, 2024	Kick-Off Event
February 10, 2024	Workshop #1 - Team Contracts, Coding, AI, Market Research, Brainstorming
March 2, 2024	Workshop #2 - Business Planning, Minimum Viable Product, Prototyping, Learning Journey
April 6, 2024	Workshop #3 - TBD!
May 4, 2024	Live pitch event!

To participate in Technovation Waterloo workshops, register here!

View on YouTube

Two teams of Waterloo Region elementary school students have progressed to the semi-finals in the junior division of the 2023 Technovation Girls Challenge. Technovation Girls is an international 12-week program with regional chapters that equips girls and young women, including transgender, non-binary, and gender-fluid individuals ages 10 to 18 with problem-solving, leadership and coding skills to become the next generation of tech entrepreneurs and leaders.

Get Involved

Technovation Girls Waterloo is supported by a dedicated team of volunteers and community partners. Join us by getting involved in Technovation Girls.

Become a Volunteer

Technovation Girls needs many volunteers to make things happen (all folks welcome). People like you! Read below to find out more about the different ways you can volunteer with Technovation Girls.

Mentor

Role Description

As a mentor, your primary role is to be a project manager for your team. This includes helping your team:

Keep on-track with the curriculum;
Meet deadlines;
Find solutions to problems;
Designate work responsibilities.

The three facets of a mentor are someone who helps with:

project management,
time management and,
creating focus for the team.

You don't have to be an expert, but instead able to help the girls find solutions to their problems. Technical and non-technical mentors are welcome.

Time Commitment

~2-3 hours a week from January to April

Coach

Role Description

Coaches provide feedback to teams in a one-on-one setting at designated workshops. These are folks who are interested in supporting the program but have less free time in their calendars.

The times and topics of the working sessions are as follows:

Ideation
Prototyping + Coding + UX/UI Design
Coding + Business Plan
Pitch feedback

Time Commitment

2-4 hours a month from January to April. Coaches are not required to attend every session, only those for which they are available.

Speaker

Role Description

Speakers are experts on their chosen subject matter and deliver engaging, interactive workshops to Technovation participants. Speakers can either refine and present existing content or create their own presentation to be delivered at our weekly Technovation virtual workshops.

Topic categories include:

Ideation
Coding
Entrepreneurship
Pitch
Artificial Intelligence

Time Commitment

~15-45 minutes per presentation (+ prep time).

Judge

Role Description

Judges review submissions from teams, offer feedback and encourage teams to keep building. This helps strengthen team pitches for the global competition.

Time Commitment

30 minutes for training on evaluating submissions + ~3 hours for reviewing submissions.

Become a Community Partner or Sponsor

Technovation Girls is requires the support of community partners to help run our season.

Partners can:

Host a workshop, which involves providing:
- The event space
- Equipment
- If possible, a water dispenser for refreshments for attendees
Engage staff to be mentors and coaches to work with teams

Sponsors can:

Donate to support our Regional Pitch Event, held in May, where teams pitch their projects to a live team of judges
Fund t-shirts for teams and other swag
Offer prizes (Consider experiences for the girls, like tours of local companies, automatic acceptance into a youth developer program, or a summer internship. We're open to ideas!)

Reach out to technovation@uwaterloo.ca if you are interested in becoming a Community Partner or Sponsor.

Spread the Word

You can help Technovation Girls by spreading the word throughout the community! Spread the word within your place of work with colleagues and to any parents that you may know.

click-here-to-download-the-2023-2024-flyer.pdf

Regional Pitch Event

At the conclusion of each season, teams pitch their apps and AI solutions to a panel of judges. The judges will provide feedback and score the teams based on pre-determined criteria; top-scoring teams are able to move on to become semi-finalists. Semi-finalists have their submissions reviewed once again to select a team to move on to the Global Pitch Event. We anticipate we will be holding an in-person Regional Pitch Event this year again!

Find out more about the judging process by clicking here.

For questions about registration, submissions, the curriculum, and the program please read the Technovation Challenge FAQ.

Our Community Partners

With thanks and gratitude to our community partners for their support and sponsorship!

CodeGirl

CodeGirl is a documentary from 2015 about the Technovation Challenge. It tells the story of a number of high school-aged girls from around the world as they try to better their community through technology and collaboration in a thrilling, heartfelt documentary.