Kainos and Girlguiding Inspire Young Women at TechAdventure 2015

Date posted
14 April 2015
Reading time
5 Minutes

Kainos and Girlguiding Inspire Young Women at TechAdventure 2015

TA-2015-Screen Girls and young women involved in Girlguiding in Northern Ireland experienced a camp with a difference this weekend, as engineers from local digital solutions company Kainos partnered with Girlguiding Ulster to host the first technology camp for Girlguides in the province. Guides and members of The Senior Section (aged 12-15) came from all over Northern Ireland for a hands-on weekend where they learned the basics of computer science. They used simple open source tools such as Scratch, AppInventor and WebMaker to explore the foundations of coding, mobile applications and website design. A number of female engineers from Kainos attended the camp to provide mentoring in the various technologies and to provide the girls with insights into the opportunities and excitement of a career in technology. 'TechAdventure 2015??, held at the Girlguiding's Lorne House, featured workshops and mentoring sessions for 26 girls and young women, and culminated in a website design challenge, in which participants worked in groups to brainstorm, design and build websites for members of Girlguiding. All the girls who attended received a 'TechAdventure 2015?? badge as well as being given access to a range of dedicated on-line resources on the TechAdventure website that will allow them to continue to expand the technical skills that they gained at the camp. The winning group from the website design challenge were also awarded tickets to the BelTech 2015 Education Day on 1st May at the Titanic Building in Belfast. Every year Girlguiding runs hundreds of activities all over the UK for girls and young women aged five to 24. Last year, at Foxlease in Hampshire, the first TechAdventure camp was run in conjunction with Kainos and Girlguiding South West England with resounding success, so it was with great excitement that Lorna Hermin, the founder of TechAdventure, brought the camp to her home region. Lorna has been a Girlguide leader for many years and is a Principal Architect at Kainos, where encouraging young people to get involved in technology is at the heart of a number of their Digital Academy initiatives such as AppCamp and CodeCamp. Speaking about the motivation behind the creation of TechAdventure, Lorna said: 'Technology is quickly becoming central to all aspects of our lives and gaining skills in logical thinking and problem solving that are at the heart of engineering careers are also vital in all walks of life. TechAdventure brings together two of my favourite things Girlguiding and technology in the hope that we can bring a new aspect to the Girlguiding programme and inspire girls to be part of the next generation of technologists and engineers.'