A group of tech-savvy teenagers from the�Central Foundation Girls School (CFGS), East London, will tonight discover if they have the X-factor when it comes to app innovation.
Pitching their mobile app ideas in front of a 150+ audience including Charles Leadbeater and ex-minister for Schools and Learners Lord Jim Knight, the girls? app inventions will face judgement from a panel of industry ?dragons? in the Dragons Den-themed event in Westminster.
Since September, twenty students aged 13-17 on the�Apps for Good course at the inner city girls school have�been working in teams to research and reflect on problems that affect their lives and their communities, and creating mobile apps to solve them.
The solutions they have come up with include an app that helps you get up in the morning (Buzzer Buddiez), and an app that helps teachers communicate effectively with the Bengali-speaking community (Transit)�-�72% of students at the school are Bangladeshi, 75% are Muslim and 60% have a home language other than English.
At the event held at Eland House tonight, their ideas will be judged by a panel of dragons who will have the final say on whether or not their apps will be developed.
Employment in IT professional occupations has more than doubled since the early 1990s ? but�the representation of women in the sector has steadily declined.�According to IT sector skills body�e-skills UK only 17% of the UK?s tech workforce is female.��Men outnumber women in the industry by nearly 4:1.
?Mobile technology is a big growth area, and at a time when unemployment and education costs are rising, we need to continue to encourage girls to consider this as a study and career option,? remarks Janet Chapman, assistant Head Teacher at CFGS. ?Giving technology meaning and relevance like this helps make IT interesting for our girls, with several now expressing a desire to learn programming, something they may not have considered before. We hope that programmes like Apps for Good will encourage more girls to look at technology as a viable, interesting option for them.?
Central Foundation Girls School is the first school in the UK to adopt the�Dell YouthConnect-supported Apps for Good programme from charity�CDI Europe, which recently won a�Learning Without Frontiers award and is currently shortlisted for the�Guardian Megas.��The school?s borough, Tower Hamlets,�has one of the largest and fastest growing youth populations in Europe but remains one of the most deprived local authority areas in England, with the highest rate of unemployment in the country.��For�Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women in the area, economic inactivity is as high as 70%.
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