Three girls’ teams from Abia State, are among the 20 top that qualified, out of 279 participating in the 2023 season of the Technovation Girls Challenge, in the country.

Technovation, is an internal programme, designed towards equipping the girl child across the globe with knowledge in entrepreneurship, leadership, problem solving, and most importantly, technological skills to curb or totally eradicate some discomforting problems within their immediate environment.

The feat, according to Ebere Chiemela, South-East Regional Ambassador of Technovation, has heightened the urgent need, for more support to the girl child in technology to be able to push their solutions beyond the competition and use their acquired creative skills to initiate changes in society.

The expert described the achievements of the Abia teams as a big one that demands serious attention from both government and well-meaning people from the state.

Chiemela said the girls would join others world over to compete for the world prize and stand a chance of travelling to the San Francisco Bay, in the United States of America by October this year: “Since the commencement of the programme in 2010, more than 39,000 girls from over 100 countries have created applications, to solve community problems and with the help of volunteer mentors, the girls have produced mobile app startups that have helped address problems in local and global communities.

“Technovation is a global technology education non-profit group, that applies grassroots approach in empowering underserved communities, especially girls and women between 8-18 years of age, to address local problems through cutting edge technologies.”

It was gathered that the participating girls are grouped into between four and five to make up a team, and are coached in different designated technological hubs across the state, before coming out to engage other girls from different parts of the world in creative technology skills.

The programme equally equips young girls to become technology entrepreneurs and leaders and with the support of volunteer mentors and parents, they work in teams (girls grouped) to code Mobile Apps that address real world problems.

It was further gathered that in the past 12 weeks, girls aged 8-18, from different secondary schools in the state had joined their colleagues around the world, to participate in this year’s season of the challenge.

In last year’s Technovation Girls Challenge in which 1,700 teams participated, the young girls were able to create Applications for tackling problems related to climate change, domestic violence, women’s equality, poverty and many more. (Daily Sun)

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