We are over the moon we have received funding from the Federal Government to scale MissMakesCode, our hackathon for young girls aged 5-8, in schools across Australia in 2017.
We ran a pilot for #MissMakesCode in September and now we’re taking it to teachers Australia-wide to bring the delight of building things on the internet to SO MANY MORE young girls.
#MissMakesCode is the first hackathon in the world created to build confidence and self efficacy in the areas of algorithmic thinking, programming and coding for in young girls from 5-8 years of age. And that’s a beautiful thing.
The funding will enable us to train teachers to deliver science curricula (algorithmic thinking, computational thinking, software development and coding) in schools across Australia. The project focuses on girls aged 5-8 years and consists of one-day events, online training and on-going support.
Aligned with the National Digital Technologies Curriculum, the goal is to increase awareness and participation of girls in STEM and entrepreneurship education at the earliest schooling opportunity.
Thank you for being a part of the community bringing this initiative to life – we will have plenty of opportunities for you to get involved in 2017. This literally would not have happened without you, so stay tuned to see what’s next!
Girl Geek Academy CEO Sarah Moran spoke to The Australian about the funding – read the full article here.
“Unlike America, Australia is building an inclusive narrative that fosters the development of young girls and women in STEM and our economy will reap the benefits over the longer term,” she said.
“If we want to compete with Silicon Valley, we are literally trumping them on gender equality and inclusion. Australia is the healthiest place to be a young girl with an interest in technology, entrepreneurship and start-ups — how cool is that?”
“Young boys will benefit from this too because it means they will have more friends to make and play games with and later down the track build awesome companies with. This investment benefits everyone, without hurting anyone.”
Thank you for making this happen, Teresa!
We are so thankful and proud of Girl Geek Academy member, Eden EduTech founder, school principal and #MissMakesCode creator Teresa Deshon.Earlier this year, Teresa joined Girl Geek Academy and wrote us an email. It was pretty much along the lines “Hello my name is Teresa, I’m a girl geek and I want to run a Girl Geek Academy event for girls as young as prep and kindergarten”.
We said let’s do it and #MissMakesCode was born.
“We know it is necessary to get to girls when they are young to build the confidence and expertise they need to really make a big impact as digital professionals.”
“I have been teaching Prep, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 IT for the last few years and am always amazed at what they can do given the chance. I wanted to create an event for younger girls where they could learn some programming concepts, coding and produce something. The girls are smart, savvy and ready to conquer!”
“My personal belief since I was a girl was that I could do anything and it was up to me to “Make it Happen”. We are proud to have built this important message into the educational experience of #MissMakesCode.”
Thank you so much for all that you do, Teresa! And so much love to these amazing people too! We’d also like to say a big thanks to Andrew Barnes and Scott Cooper from GO1 for providing us with the Learning Management System to manage #MissMakesCode training, Girl Geek Academy cofounder Amanda Watts and the Design Junkies team for the beautiful #MissMakes brand and design, Brisbane Marketing for the Lord Mayor’s Budding Entrepreneur’s Grant support for Girl Geek Academy and John Barton from 99designs for your initial support of Girl Geek Academy.You have all supported us when we’ve needed you most and now our collective dreams are coming true!
