Deadline: April 21, 2016 | Apply here
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Eligibility: Young women who are students enrolled in Primary or Secondary School
Prize: $20k in seed funding
Location: San Francisco, USA
Technology entrepreneurship led by girls
Every year, Technovation challenges girls all over the world to build a mobile app that will address a community problem. Since 2010, over 3,000 girls from 28 countries have submitted to Technovation, thanks to dedicated volunteers around the world. Girls do not need to have programming experience to participate, and Technovation is free for any girl who wants to participate.
Technovation Challenge 2016
Technovation’s success in changing girls’ attitudes about technology and entrepreneurship relies on local volunteers.
Volunteer Coaches recruit teams of girls to work with female mentors. Together, they come up with an app idea, conduct user research, create a business plan, and build the app prototype. Leaders from the technology and business sectors judge the submissions and provide feedback to the teams.
Over the past 5 years, Technovation has transformed from an in-person program taught by Technovation staff to a global competition reaching thousands of girls. By now, over 5400 girls from 28 countries have developed 1029 mobile phone apps and learned to launch startup companies through Technovation.
Become a technology entrepreneur and develop a mobile app prototype that solves a real problem in your local community.
Teams of up to 5 girls work together to research, design, and build a mobile app prototype, working with a female mentor in technology or engineering. Then they pitch their apps to prospective investors and receive feedback and ideas from technology industry professionals. No prior coding or app development experience is necessary.
Registration Requirements
To register for the official competition, Technovation must receive complete signed consent forms from every team member or her legal guardian and pre-surveys within 2 weeks of registering.
If parents do not have regular email/internet access, the consent forms can also be downloaded, signed, then emailed to info@technovationchallenge.org. Subject lines must formatted as “Technovation consent form: ‘Student Name/DOB/Location’.”
In summary, completion of all 4 steps below qualifies as a full registration for Technovation Challenge 2016.
- Create an account at my.technovationchallenge.org (if you are registering for the first time). If you have registered for a previous season, you may reuse your login credentials.
2.Have the appropriate consent forms signed.
3. Complete the pre-survey.
4. Attach yourself to a team.
Grant Application for Technovation Ambassadors
Technovation will award small grants again to support Official Regional Pitch events across the globe. Each grantee will receive $1,000 for organizing Regional Pitch events. Technovation reserves the right to make the final decision on awarding the grant. Details on eligibility criteria and application process will be shared with Regional Ambassadors in Fall 2016.
The Submission Deadline is April 21st, 2016 at 5pm PT.
App Theme
The theme for 2016 is to create an app to address a community problem or issue. Teams will define the community issue as part of the curriculum steps before defining their solution.
Deliverables
- App source code (can be developed in Android, iOS, or Windows)
- Up to 4-minute video pitch (upload to YouTube or Vimeo and share the link)
- Up to 2-minute app demo video (upload to YouTube or Vimeo and share the link)
- Business plan (pdf)
- Team photo (with mentor and teacher included, if possible) for each team
- 100-word app description
- Completion of post-survey
Deliverables must be submitted in English (or subtitled, in the case of videos), as the final stages of the judging process will be conducted by English-speaking judges.
Participants
Each Technovation Team includes from 1 to 5 participants.
Teams consisting of more than 5 participants are ineligible for their respective division prizes. Participants must be young women who are students enrolled in Primary or Secondary School on the day of the submission deadline. University students are not eligible. In addition to the Participants, Technovation Teams may also include one or more Technovation Teachers and Technovation Mentors.
World Pitch Finalist Selection
World Pitch 2016 will feature a total of 10 finalists.
The exact breakdown of finalists has not been decided yet, but this section will be updated when that is finalized. World Pitch events will take place during the week of July 10th-17th. Finalists must attend World Pitch and present live in front of the judges in order to be eligible for the final prize. Finalists unable to attend World Pitch forfeit their chance for the final prize.
Materials Development
All materials submitted to Technovation must be completed by the Team Participants, with limited guidance from Technovation Teachers, Technovation Mentors, and other advisors.
Technovation welcomes the use of outside, open-source resources, as well, such as integrations with free APIs. The use of any materials that are not developed exclusively by the Team Participants and not available universally are prohibited in final app submissions.
Mobile App Platform
Technovation encourages the use of MIT App Inventor for beginners to develop mobile app prototypes for Android devices. However, final app submissions may be developed on any platform including iOS, Google Glass, and Windows phones. Submissions must be developed and designed for mobile devices.
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