This year’s Programming 11 students were assigned a community engagement project to apply their programming skills towards addressing a community/global issue. Students formed three teams of three to tackle developing a mobile app that could be applied to one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals in a real world situation. In the lead up to this project, two of the teams took part in a global competition run by Technovation.
Technovation offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the necessary skills to become tech entrepreneurs and leaders. Girls ages 10 to 18 learn to identify a problem in their community and create a mobile app solution to address that problem, and then learn how to communicate these ideas and translate them into a business.
Our Programming 11 students spent from January to May collaborating through the various stages of ideation, application coding, and creating an entrepreneurial business plan, which then culminated with them presenting an investment pitch for their mobile app to a panel of various community leaders. While it was not expected that the teams would be able to develop and code a fully functioning mobile app at this stage, our students stepped up and went beyond the challenged by trying their best and actually producing well-functioning applications.
Our three teams of students developed three separate apps to address three diverse issues. Team 1’s Aider app is an app designed to alert volunteer First Responders of someone who may be in immediate distress, Team 2 (Anika, Emma, and Yvonne) developed the CARbon app as a tool to coordinate carpooling and reduce harmful emissions, and Team 3 (aka “Appsolutely” – Amanda, Stephanie, and Grace) developed an app specifically targeting York House School students. Their app would allow students to easily access the school timetable, search important announcements for the day, and schedule important tests all in one place.
Congratulations to all for your hard work and outstanding performance!
Noble Kelly
Programming 11 Teacher
