ChickTech: High School—a yearlong program encouraging high school girls to get involved in the technology industry through hands-on events, mentoring, and internships—is kicking off this year’s series of events on March 1st and 2nd. We’ll have 100 girls, most of whom have never had the opportunity to create a technology project before, at the PSU engineering building all weekend working on a unique creation!
At the end of the weekend (March 2nd from 4:15-5:30), we’ll have a Tech Show. Our version of a science fair. No competition. Just a demonstration of how creative and talented all the girls are. Come show your support for both gender diversity in tech and for these specific Portland girls who are willing to take that leap and give up their weekends to learn how they can impact and improve their world through technology. We promise you’ll enjoy it, and you’ll come away energized and excited by their attitudes and pride at their progress.
An RSVP is not required; the event is free. But we ask that you kindly do so in order to help us with planning food and space! Please RSVP for the event.
We’re also looking for mentors for our participants. For more information and preferred qualifications, please check out the ChickTech mentor guidelines. If you can’t make the first training, don’t worry, we’ll have another one!
And of course, we are a nonprofit! Please consider a donation to support us as we work to improve the technology industry and empower girls and women. We’re quite efficient, if we do say so ourselves; $500 supports a hs girl through the entire year, including the internship and mentor programs and 10-11 monthly events from March-Feb. And last year (our first year), we showed an increase of 61% in their interest in a tech career and a 118% increase in their confidence in their tech skills.
For more information, visit ChickTech: High School.
ChickTech founder Janice Levenhagen-Seely is owner and principal of Embla Consulting, a marketing and business consulting firm for small businesses. She is also co-founder of trovi, a seed-stage tech startup located in Portland, Oregon. Janice has a BS in Computer Engineering from Oregon State University and an MBA from Willamette University. She believes strongly that the diversity and strengths that women can bring will push high tech to even more impressive heights. Her inspiration for creating ChickTech came from her own experiences in computer engineering and the realization that the percentage of women in engineering isn’t going to get higher by itself.
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Can I help out in some way? I’m a techie mom with a high school daughter. I don’t have degrees but have a 30 yr high tech career.