On Monday and Tuesday, November 12-14, four schools in Catania will host coding sessions for young women, a hackathon and the creation of a “Coding Club” to fight school dropouts and female unemployment.
In Sicily, one out of every five young women abandons school and never receives a diploma. Women, who are neither in work nor in education, are 38-40%. The female unemployment rate in Sicily is 51.6%, the second highest in Italy after Calabria. These are the challenges that the Coding Girls will have to face in Catania to overcome gender stereotypes and interest young women in coding by involving them in hands-on use of new technology.
The National Coding Girls Tour, which began in Naples on November 6, is promoted by the by Fondazione Mondo Digitale and the United States Embassy in Italy in collaboration with Microsoft. A series of intensive training sessions will be held for the teams by American Coach Emily Thomforde, Code Educator and Science Technology Engineering Art and Mathematics (STEAM) Specialist, to interest young women in scientific subjects and fight the gender gap.
On November 13, over 120 young women from ITI Marconi, IPSS Mangano, LSS Galilei and LAS Greco di Catania, will practice their computational thinking with coding exercises. Block after block, the girls will train for the coding marathon that will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at the University of Catania, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (Viale Andrea Doria 6).
“The hackathon will be fun and stimulating, but the most important thing is that we contribute to the development of competences that are increasingly in demand in the working world. It will be an opportunity for the #codinggirls to discover passions and talents that will make them more competitive in their future professions,” pointed out Shawn Baxter, United States Consul for Press and Culture.
The educational tour will continue in Milan (Nov. 16-17), but Catania will continue its activities through the foundation of a Coding Girls Club in which young women can become mentors and organise coding and creativity sessions for their peers.
From the Roman Leg
Winning Teams of the "Everyday is an Opportunity" Hackathon
1st Place: Team Righi 5 - Liceo A. Righi, Rome
- Chiara Ottino
- Livia Guttieres
- Alisia Lupidi
- Luca Leccese
2nd Place: Team Peano 4 - Liceo G.Peano, Monterotondo
- Chiara Gaccetti
- Aurora Decembrini
- Ilaria De Cesare
- Elisa Capobianco
- Samantah Di Genova
3rd Place: Team Radice 7 - IIS Lombardo Radice, Rome
- Michela Zanecchi
- Rachele Rossi
- Erika Gaetano
- Ilaria Moro
- Francesca Regna
Honourable Mentions
- Avogadro 1 - Liceo Avogadro, Rome
- Majorana 1 - Liceo Majorana, Rome
- Spallanzani 2 - Liceo Spallanzani, Tivoli
