An online hackathon for grade 1-12 school girls that aims to close the gender gap in the field of programming and computer science in India is starting this month (October 2021). ‘CodeQueens’, an online app, game, and website development hackathon is exclusively for K-12 girl students.
Spread over two months, the CodeQueens hackathon will feature multiple coding challenges to build functional websites, apps or games. The hackathon is divided into three groups: Junior (class 1-4), Middle (class 5-8) and Senior (class 9-12) and is open to individual registrations. Winners from each group will receive exclusive scholarships from Codingal.
To win the hackathon, participants in the Junior group need to build an app, game or animation around the story of Cinderella, or any other fairytale of their choice that has a female as the main character.
In the Middle Group, participants need to build an app or website with useful information about any female role model that inspires them. Senior Group participants are tasked with building an app or a website on the theme of gender equality, with useful information addressing the gender gap issues that exist today, and the necessary steps to combat them.
“While India may have the highest percentage of female STEM graduates, only 14% of them hold STEM jobs (World Bank data). The goal of encouraging female coders is to prepare them for future job-readiness. Hackathons are a great way to enhance coding skills and proficiency. They offer hands-on learning and let participants apply their learning, ideas, and creativity together to solve a problem,” Vivek Prakash, Cofounder of Codingal said.
Registration for the hackathon has already started with final results to be announced on November 21, 2o21.Interested students can register at https://www.codingal.com/competitions/codequeens/
