This course will become read-only in the near future. Tell us at community.p2pu.org if that is a problem.
This professional development course pools resources on topics such as building your personal brand, running a team, and managing projects for mentors and teachers participating in Technovation Challenge.
Welcome to Technovation Challenge!
This course is a space for mentors and teachers everywhere to chat about their professional challenges, and to share experiences and best practices for working with your teams of Technovation girls. As part of the course, we included places where you can connect and post events and meetings ("meetups") in your area. You can also arrange virtual meetings ("hangouts") to connect with mentors and teachers from around the world.
We have included resources to help guide your personal development. These resources are optional and can be used to start conversations on P2PU, virtual hangouts, or meetups. They may also be helpful during your mentoring experience. Please share your own resources such as links to videos and articles. We will be adding a section for Technovation-specific tips and strategies.
Special thanks to the volunteer NYC-based professional women's group So What's On Your Plate for putting together the resources for this course.
“So What’s On Your Plate” (SWOYP) is a global community that focuses on bringing a diverse group of ambitious women together to foster friendships, build skills relevant to their lifestyles, and give them an avenue to make an impact in their local communities.
You can connect with SWOYP on Facebook and Twitter.
Introduce yourself to other mentors and teachers by adding a comment to this task.
Note: Please be sure to review and follow our P2PU posting guidelines.
Hello and Happy New Years!
I am a science teacher in Redwood City, CA and am very much looking forward to this year's Technovation Challenge! I am looking for one another mentor for Sequoia High School's Techovation team, and would love to hear from anyone who may be interested.
Ashley Dever
Hi, My name is Swetha and I am Software Engineer at Waters Corp. in Massachusetts. This is my first time as a mentor at the Technovation challenge. I am really excited about mentoriing a team. I am looking forward to mentoring students at the AMSA Charter School in Marlborough and sharing my knowledge and experience within in the field.
I took photos at the SF South Bay Mentor Recruitment event. Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gidgets/sets/72157632282834902/with/8286575682/
Note: If you are in these photos and do not want me to have them up, please let me know and send me a link to which photo, so that I may respect your privacy. Thanks!
Hi all!
I'm Elaine and I teach Computer Science at South Gate High School in Southern California. I have 9 girls who are very excited about Technovation, but we're looking for a mentor. I have a software background so I can help with the many of the technical aspects of this program, but I have no clue about the business aspects.
It's going to be fun!
Elaine--
Hi all
I'm with a team of Middle school girls from Chennai India. They are superexcited to be a part of Technovation!!!!
We need a mentor - couldn't find anyone closer than Yemen on the map! Any mentors in India?
If someone in the US can adjust to a 12 hour difference, we are game for a remote mentor also!
Regards
Aneesa Jamal
Hi Aneesa,
Welcome to Technovation! We're excited you're joining us too. Are there any companies or organizations near by that you can reach out to? Or maybe companies at least in India just so you don't have to keep working around the 12-hr difference? You can find email templates here if you want to reach out.
Here are some examples, but I'm sure you know the area better and can probably find more companies and organizations:
Women's India Trust: http://www.wit.org.in/
Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneurs: http://www.fiwe.org/
Consortium of Women Entrepreneurs of India: http://www.cwei.org/
Small Industry Development Organization: http://www.msmedihimachal.nic.in/sido.html
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (help women entrepreneurs): www.nabard.org
Alternatively, you can find another teacher to help you and lead the teams yourself! Let me know what you think :)
Tahani
Hi Tahani
Thanks!!! Those are a great list of resources - will try to contact them for a name.
I will be contacting local software companies too - a dime a dozen here right! LOL. Just not sure if I would find someone with appropriate experience.
My team is pretty young - middle schoolers, so I thought an experienced mentor would be great.
I may be able to take them thru the business planning part of the pitch challenge , but need someone on the tech side for app inventor.
Thanks again and keep in touch -
Regards
Aneesa
Al Qamar Academy
Glad you found the resources helpful! I love that you're willing in guiding the girls through the business piece :)
Keep in mind the mentors don't need to be too technical as App Inventor is gmadefor beginners. So any woman can go through the Hack Day tutorials and help her be more confident in leading the teams, or just learn alongside the students. I personally don't have any CS background, and helped teams last year troubleshoot with app inventor! It's really not that hard. And we have several returning mentors and CS teachers on P2PU as well who can offer help and feedback.
Anyways, best of luck with your search, and keep us posted on how it goes!
Tahani
I have a group of girls who have started the course at Skyline High here in Oakland. I thought we had a mentor, but something came up at the last minute and she was not able to do it. We need a mentor. We came to UCB on Saturday and will be meeting once a week in my computer lab here at school. We are in the Oakland Hills.
Hi
It's a new chalenge for me to paricipate as a mentor in this initiative!
I don't know how successful I'll manage the girls' team 
Up to now I've lead mainly teams of boys or girls individually!
We've done our Hack Day today!
It was so rainy, but we are content! (for today)
I wonder how to apply this positive initiative with my students at my university
Welcome, Galina! Congratulations on completing your hack day. Glad to hear it went well!
AnnaLise
Hi there,
I'm iulia, I'm an SDE at Amazon in Toronto, Canada. This is my first year mentoring and I'm very excited!
Cheers,
iulia
Hi Julia!
We are so excited about our Toronto teams this year. Welcome!
Angélica
Angelica,
I just wanted to share with you that unfortunately the public secondary school board in Ontario (Toronto) is not participating in extra-curricular activities until the provincial government repeals controversial legislation related to education. Hopefully the issues can be resolved before the weekly Technovation program starts, but at this point I've had to postpone any club activities.
Of course, any schools from independent schools or an alternative board in Toronto could be participating this year.
We are all hoping for a quick resolution (including my 2 teams that are ready to start in January). Our mentors have agreed to visit our classrooms in the spring as an alternative which is great, but a weekly project-based program would be so much more rewarding.
Regards,
Grant Hutchison
TDSB, Humberside CI
Thanks, Grant. Gillian had let me know. I hope everything works out soon. Thanks for getting your teams started.
Hello, I am a high school teacher in Hartford, Connecticut who is looking for mentors for each of our three teams. We are an interdistrict magnet school receiving students from more than 23 school districts. My school day is from 7:30 AM - 4:00 PM. I have a strong computer science program but have not been able to engage a significant number of the girls. The Technovation Challenge has enabled me to recruit 15 girls in three teams given the promise that the students will work with external mentors. I would greatly appreciate any person who can help support these wonderful students and help them make a further leap in exploring Computer Science. The teams want to meet after school on Thursdays or Fridays from 4:00 - 6:00 PM. Saturday is an option.
Thank you.
My name is Amy Chen. I am a group lead in Computational Research Divison, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
This is my second year being a mentor. I am mentoring Oakland High this year.
HACK DAY TUTORIAL ANSWER GUIDE (FOR TEACHERS + MENTORS)
Hi all,
During Hack Day, your students will be working on tutorials to learn App Inventor, and answering questions on worksheets along the way to ensure their knowledge of the material.
Here is the Hack Day Tutorial Answer Guide which you can use to check their answers. Please don't show it to the students :)
AnnaLise
Hi,
pick am a Computer Science teacher at Clements high school in Sugar Land Texas. I have two teams of 5 girls signed up. I am looking for a mentor. Please let me know if you know of some one in this area.
Lubna Lorena
Hi,
I'm a physicist working at Berkeley Lab. My field is accelerator physics, but I also work a lot with our Lab's education department on outreach activities.
I have been a mentor last year with a team from Berkeley High and this year will be working together with two other mentors on what I undertand to be five teams at Albany High.
And today (Dec 14th) I just want to go home and hug my 11-year-old son.
Hope to meet some of you at Hackday at UC Berkeley tomorrow
Ina
Happy Friday to all!
I am Debbie Sater, a physics teacher at California High School in San Ramon, (east bay off I-680). I have enough girls interested to have 2 or 3 teams, and am in need of a mentor in our area.
Thanks!
Debbie
Hi Debbie! Have you found mentors yet? Check out our map of mentors: http://bit.ly/MentorMap2013
AnnaLise
Greetings!
I am Josh Paley, a Computer Science teacher at Gunn HS in Palo Alto. We have enough students to field four teams, but we have finals next week and I am drowning in work at the moment. I hope to reach out to potential mentors that appear on the map this weekend, but if you see this and live near Palo Alto and would like to help, please consider this a form of reaching out! Please drop me an email at josh.paley@gmail.com if interested.
ATTENTION BAY AREA MENTORS:
I'd like to tell you about an opportunity to do some outreach and find a school to work with. Girls Inc. has invited us to come and present to their after school groups to tell girls about the program and recruit them to join.
Here are the schools, dates, times, etc. when we are invited to present:
John Muir, 1444 Williams Ave, San Leandro, 20 girls- Tuesday or Thursday, 3:30-4:40pm
Roots International, 1390-66th Ave., 18 girls, Oakland- Thursday, 4-4:45pm
Alliance Academy, 1800-98th Ave, Oakland, 20 girls- Tuesday or Thursday, 4-4:45pm
Boys and Girls Club of North San Mateo County, 201 W. Orange St., South San Francisco, 15 girls- Wednesday 4-5pm
...Interested? Email me: annalise@iridescentlearning.org. Thanks!
AnnaLise
Hi,
I'm Bon. I've heeard of Technovation several years ago but due to job and geographical changes, was unable to dedicate time to the program.
I'm located in Mountain View, CA and can attest to it that not having a full technical background can make it hard in the Silicon Valley to change careers. I'm living example for the girls to develop their technical backgrounds early.
Looking for a team to join up with in the South bay.
Bon
I reached out to a school and found someone interested during my search for a teacher, but have not been able to refer any mentors!
She is not signed up yet, so you two should try to connect, find girls, and get registered ASAP!
Please tell her I referred you so she knows what you are talking about!
Megan Stauffer
Mathematics Instructor
Gunn High School
How funny!
I'll talk to Megan tomorrow. She's my colleague. I suppose this is a left-hand not knowing what the right hand is doing...
Oh that is funny! Jo and I reached out to Gunn when we were trying to find more schools and Megan replied to us, but after we'd found a school. Hopefully this means you guys have a team and a mentor then!!
Hi Joshua, Kamilah, Jo,
I got a little lost in the messages here. Megan IS the teacher at Gunn high school I should reach out to right?
Would anyone mind PM'ing or emailing me where the last conversation left off with Gunn high so I don't become another voice confusing the poor teacher there?
bonny.lai@gmail.com
Thanks
Bon--
Megan and I are both the right contacts. mstauffer@pausd.org for her, josh.paley@gmail.com for me.
We still need mentors. Are you still available?
Regards,
Josh
TECHNOVATION VIDEOS
Hi all,
We just published two videos that might be helpful for you:
http://bit.ly/welcomeTC13 (5 min., gives an overview of the program)
http://bit.ly/tourofp2pu13 (5 min., gives an overview of P2PU)
AnnaLise
Hey ladies,
I'm a web developer in the Bay. This is my first year working with Technovation. I'm excited to see what the girls at Lycee Francais make for our community. Hopefully, they wow the judges like last year.
Happy holidays,
Lauren
Welcome, Lauren! Glad to have you in the program :)
AnnaLise
Hello,
I am Kelly a Computer Science teacher in a 6-12 school located in Marlborough, MA. We participated in the challenge last year and all of our girls gained enormously from this experience. They formed new friendships, mastered Computer Science skills, business skills and presentation skills. This year we have a new group of 27 students and we are seeking mentors. Our group will start meeting in January and we currently have 5 teams in need of mentors. Please contact me if you are interested in helping us.
Thanks :)
