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The Saturday Academy’s Technovation Challenge program is a three-month, 50-hour curriculum which involves girls working in teams of five to develop mobile apps and pitch startup businesses to investors.
The program’s 2014 theme encourages girls to develop an app to solve an issue in their community.
“Saturday Academy is addressing the technology gender gap head-on by giving young women a positive experience with computer science,” said Cynthia Barnett, CEO of Saturday Academy, in a press release. “This will impact their education and career decisions down the road.”
The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that by 2020, women educated in the U.S. will fill 3 percent of the 29 percent of jobs created in the computing-related fields expected to be filled by U.S. graduates.
The grant came from the Fairfield County Community Foundation’s Fund for Women and Girls. Individuals, families, corporations and organizations can establish charitable funds or donate to existing ones to the foundation. The foundation has awarded more than $168 million in grants to non-profits in Fairfield County and beyond, according to a press release.
The Saturday Academy is a non-profit organization supported by the National Girls Collaborative Project. It seeks to spark girls’ interests in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The program is free to all participants and no prior programming experience is necessary for students, teachers or mentors.
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