My Technovation Experience

I joined Technovation when I was in my senior year of high school. I knew that I wanted to be a graphic designer, so I thought it would be an excellent experience in app designing. Most of the other girls had been in it since elementary school and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. This couldn’t have been farther from the truth. I was immediately welcomed by my teammates and soon it became like a family. We started bringing snacks to meetings and it turned into our tradition.

I had absolutely no experience with coding or app building but with the help of my team and mentors I quickly caught on. Technovation provides access to experienced mentors and they can help anyone learn how to code. You can go from knowing nothing about coding to creating technology all by yourself!

We used the program Thunkable to create our app. Thunkable has a collection of tutorials for app development and they are all extremely helpful for beginners. Thunkable also has a database of app projects that users can make and use for their own designs. At first it was hard to figure out the coding blocks, but it got easier the more I practiced.

H2Awesome - Minnesota finalists from this past year!!

I realized that it helps to know a team’s strengths and weaknesses in order to succeed together. My team learned a lot about responsibility and leadership during the Technovation season. We assigned tasks based on our skills and essentially became experts on that job. I love art, so I was in charge of making the graphics for our app. I especially liked brainstorming ideas for our app. We centered our app's theme around nature and incorporated ideas from every person in our group. It was very important to us to make sure every person's ideas were heard.

My team decided on a routine and goal app to help minimize procrastination for users. It was a topic that my team related to, especially when managing school, work, and our home life.

One of great things about Technovation is creating technology for topics you’re passionate about. My whole team was very creative and motivated since we chose a topic that we loved. We got to collaborate and share ideas about our passions and how we could make a difference in the world.

Technovation offers endless growth opportunities to students. During my time in Technovation I always had fun and it opened numerous doors of opportunity for me. I was able to gain experience in app development and design while making close friends. My only regret is that I hadn’t joined Technovation sooner.

Technovation prepares students for college and STEM careers and I have witnessed teens being awarded scholarships and even internships for their hard work. I highly recommend this program to anyone who can join!!

Written by Bree Volker

The official 2023-2024 Technovation Girls Challenge season kicks off October 11th.

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