Technovation

Despite technology’s growing centrality to the human condition, women remain underrepresented in tech workforce and leadership in STEM. In data science and AI - fields that build our future - women make up only 20-30% of workers. The  pandemic is exacerbating inequities and eroding hard-won gains. According to WEF, it will now take 136 years to reach gender parity. Addressing these disparities is the key to sustainable development. 

Technovation is the world’s largest technology-entrepreneurship program that empowers girls to tackle community problems using cutting-edge technologies, thereby developing their skills, voice, influence and leadership.

Through Elevate’s support we will build AI skills and capacity for 20,000+ young women, while establishing an open-source blueprint and model to equip them as AI leaders and entrepreneurs worldwide. We will:

1. Identify  AI skills gaps among women, and the barriers they face in their first decade in technology careers in 7 countries: USA, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia, and India. 

2. Implement an AI Acceleration program that addresses identified gaps.

3. Expand 50 Technovation country chapters that will enable young women to successfully make the school-to-work transition.

4. Create an open-source AI skilling blueprint for women to participate and lead in the AI workforce.

I had a childhood that was not usual for girls in India. My parents told me I could do anything, be anything - even though they were “not for girls”. 

Airplanes fascinated me, and I wanted to be a fighter pilot. When that did not work out, I turned to building planes, becoming an engineer instead. Eventually I moved to the United States to pursue my PhD in Aerospace Engineering, and was struck by the deep, structural inequalities in such a wealthy country. I decided to leave Aerospace Engineering as building airplanes didn't seem such an impactful use of my time. 

Education seemed a fundamental approach to addressing inequality. I spent a year studying existing successful models and past data, and engineered the core pillars of our approach based on the gaps - focusing on underserved communities, especially girls, engaging parents as co-learners, tapping into industry mentors to provide social capital, and placing everything on top of a technology platform to enable efficient scale. 

I wanted to build something that would give girls from low-income communities the knowledge and social capital that would change their life trajectories, and their sense of agency. And that's how Technovation (formerly Iridescent) was formed.

Technovation is a 12-week competition during which girls (ages 8-18) work in teams, supported by mentors, to develop mobile or AI-based solutions to address the SDGs. Participants have tackled problems ranging from image-recognition software that scans children’s drawings for signs of depression to swimming caps that warn of drowning risk in public pools, to a prototype that detects and removes invasive algae from a lake.

Since 2006, we have reached 300,000 participants across 100+ countries with 80,000 young women alumnae who have been introduced to technology-entrepreneurship. 76% of our alumnae are pursuing a STEM degree; 60% of them working in STEM-related positions and 50% are influencing their communities and being recognized and honored for their work. Notable alumnae include three-time Technovation participant, Gitanjali Rao (Time Kid of the Year),  Grace Akpoiroro (Technovation 2015 winner, featured in the Codegirl documentary and XPRIZE next-gen mask finalist), and Emma Yang (featured on MIT Solve-Ed).

The impact data shows that we have a field-tested, large scale intervention that is successfully: 1) empowering girls to build their sense of agency as real-world problem solvers and leaders; and 2) building their capacity to become technology entrepreneurs, innovators and ecopreneurs.

No other program empowers and equips young women to tackle real-world problems with cutting-edge technologies at global scale. No other program has longitudinal data demonstrating its impact on critical higher education and career choices.

The following elements of this project make it unique:

1. Gathering actionable, quantitative and qualitative insights on AI skill gaps, barriers and boosters for women in the tech industry across 7 countries.

2. Development of an AI-skilling blueprint (with country-specific curriculum and training) that empowers young women to work towards SDGs.

3. Training young women to participate and lead in AI in their countries.

4. Expansion of an existing network of 50 Technovation chapters (in 7 countries) to support young women as they make the school to work to life transition.

“The struggle to avoid catastrophic climate change, the struggle to ensure human rights, gender equality, anti-poverty and so on, must, can, and should be seen as two sides of the same coin.” - Kumi Naidoo (Secretary-General, Amnesty International)

The 2020 UNDP Human Development Report outlines the devastating effect of COVID on human development for years to come. But the report also points to hope; we can build back stronger through education and youth activism. 

The pandemic has shown the importance of multi-layered solutions that target complex, structural inequalities. Educating girls is one such multi-layered solution for sustainable development. Educating girls is the 6th most effective strategy for reducing carbon emissions (as they marry later, have fewer children, use environmentally friendly practices, and adopt sustainable values). And educating girls to use cutting-edge technologies ensures that their nations have a diverse workforce that will drive innovation and sustained economic growth (WEF Global Skills Taxonomy, 2020).

Technovation is uniquely positioned with a 15-year track record, and a field-tested global model that can be immediately deployed to inspire, engage and equip young women worldwide to become AI innovators and leaders - helping their communities and countries become more resilient to global shocks.