Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina is hosting a workshop this coming weekend , entitled “ChickTech Raleigh-Durham,” that aims to encourage high-school girls to enter computing and technical fields. The event will finish with a presentation that will display the participants’ projects with their families and sponsors.
Participants in the workshop will choose to work on projects such as creating a robot, 3D-printing, developing a smartphone application, e-wearables, Raspberry Pi, and video production. The girls will receive mentoring from industry professionals and academics from high-tech fields throughout the workshop. The event will be free for 100 girls from local school districts that have been nominated by a teacher or community advocate. Additionally, the program will use free open-source software to lower the barrier for girls to continue their projects at home.
“It was hard to feel like I belonged as a woman in computer engineering.” said ChickTech founder Janice Levenhagen-Seeley. “So I started ChickTech to give other girls and women the support that I didn’t have. I want them to feel like they are welcome and they have unique things that they are bringing to the industry.”