Technovation Regional Pitch events became a part of Technovation in 2015; this year in a bid to accelerate girl participation in science, technology and innovation the Technovation Regional Pitch event organized by Makerere University School of Public Health ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) took place at Gayaza High School, Kampala Uganda on Sunday, May 1st, 2016. The event brought together 4 Secondary Schools in Uganda that participated in the 12-weeks Technovation Global challenge program including; Gayaza High School, Makerere Modern Secondary School, Nabisunsa Girls’ Secondary School and Maryhill High School. Teams from these schools pitched their ideas paying detail to ensuring that they submit the required deliverables.
Eng. Dr. Dorothy Okello, the Director Innovation at RAN, in her opening remarks congratulated the girls upon submitting their ideas for the Technovation Global Challenge and encouraged them to make a difference in technology were vast numbers of women will be recorded for succeeding in the field of technology. “If the women make it in technology, the girls that follow will be inspired/ motivated to try it out too and the boys will be challenged to perform even better,” she remarked.
During this event, the teams from the different schools pitched their ideas to a panel of judges. Teams that pitched included: Deharthepotunists-STEM Ugandahttp://stem.ug/ , Megatons and Magnates-Gayaza High School, Cool_tech team, LegalTech team-Mary Hill High School, Modern Tech Girls, App Techies@Modern, Mag and Tech Heroines-Makerere Modern Secondary School, Gazeera and Mummy App-Nabisunsa Girls’ Secondary School. The teams also received important critique from the judges to further better and develop their innovations. The teams were also exposed to different skills such as; public speaking.
To climax this event, three teams emerged winners of the challenge; Magnates, Megatons, and Cool_tech team. They were awarded for their concerted and continuous efforts in the challenge and the winning team from Gayaza High School (Magnates) working on a mobile application that equips unemployed youth with entrepreneurial skills and links them to their potential markets qualified to participate in the Global challenge semi-finals set to take place in San Francisco USA in July 2016. On the other hand, the other teams were encouraged to polish their innovations so as to stand a winning chance in the ongoing National Technovation Challenge www.technovation.wordpress.com.
The Technovation Challenge is a technology entrepreneurship program and competition for young women, directed towards teaching young women to build mobile applications that solve community challenges where they live.
More event photos are shared here .