Jolie has made her first Android app! I could not be more proud of my 8-year old. Thanks to the PayPal's Girls In Tech AppJamming Camp, she's discovered what a joy it is to create apps like the ones she loves to use on her mobile.
The AppJaming camp is part of PayPal’s Girls in Tech programme which started out in the U.S. as an initiative to help close the gender gap in technology, by providing tech knowledge to school girls aged 8-14 years old.
It’s the first time this camp has come to Singapore. The three-day camp is fully sponsored by PayPal and is held at its Suntec office.
The girls get a glimpse of programming knowledge and logic but at this stage, they aren't expected to do serious code-diving or debugging. They do have a website that helps them piece together their Android app and transfer it to a mobile phone. The session is conducted by instructors from the First Code Academy.
But it's not all coding and sitting around computers. The girls get to try their hand at latte-art, enjoy a skit, tour the PayPal office and meet PayPal’s women tech leaders. At the end, they are coached to present their creation in a project showcase. Some pretty useful skills there!
The girls worked in teams, and pretty much became friends by the end of the camp. Jolie really enjoyed the camp; she was practically ecstatic and wanted to continue developing her app when she got home. The great thing is, all the kids can do just that - continue the interest that's been sparked by the camp.
The camp is also incredibly convenient for working parents - drop off your kid at 9am and pick them back up at 6pm. The girls even got breakfast, lunch and tea on all three days.
Jolie's session was Camp 1 (8-10 June) but there's another session for 22-24 June. Enrolment is currently full but because response has been so positive, PayPal has kindly opened up an extra seat to be given out via Camemberu.
Giveaway
All you have to do is enter via Facebook:
1) Like Camemberu and PayPalSG pages.
2) Share this post (cut and paste the URL into your Facebook post) and tag me @camemberu and make sure the post is public, so I can see it.
3) Tell us in your post what you think of girls in tech, and why you'd love to have your daughter/niece/cousin/friend attend.
You could also enter by sharing my post and entering a comment here:
https://www.facebook.com/Camemberu.Blog/posts/1107737042615770
A winner will be chosen by noon on Friday, 17 June 2016. All decisions are final. Please be on standby to let me know your contact details, as the timeline is quite tight.
Meanwhile, Anvitha Vijay was just declared the youngest iOS developer at Apple's WWDC. She's only 9 but taught herself coding at 7 from YouTube and online tutorials. The Melbourne lass got to attend the WWDC as part of an Apple scholarship. Tim Cook acknowledged her too. Isn't that just too cool?
Photo credit (all photos): Giovanni Balcaso
Many thanks to PayPal for inviting us to AppJam!
great post
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