In Turin, the Coding Girls & Women hackathon brings together secondary school pupils
A mixed-gender hackathon, with girls and boys from secondary schools on the same team. This was the challenge within the challenge at the Turin event organised by Coding Girls & Women, hosted on 14 May by I3P, the Innovative Business Incubator of the Polytechnic University of Turin. An experimental choice, welcomed with enthusiasm by trainers and teachers, which transformed the day into a workshop of collaboration across different ages, skills and backgrounds.
The event, promoted by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale as part of the Coding Girls & Women project, with the support of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, involved 74 participants, 15 teams, 4 schools and 10 accompanying teachers. The participating schools were IC Bruino, ITC Sommeiller, IIS Ferrari Mercurino and IIS Fermi Galilei.
The hackathon format combined two educational pathways. The secondary school students had worked on digital communication products (podcasts, mock-ups, slogans, social media posts, artificial intelligence tools and creative software), whilst the younger pupils had followed a programme dedicated to creating start-ups, guided by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and I3P.
On the final day, the groups were reshuffled: each team comprised two pupils from Bruino Middle School, one from ITC Sommeiller, one from IIS Ferrari Mercurino and one from IIS Fermi Galilei. After an initial period of natural wariness, the groups quickly found their footing. The older students took on a guiding and supportive role, whilst the younger ones followed their lead, contributing ideas, energy and a desire not to ‘lose face’ in front of their older peers.
The challenge, entitled “From start-up to communication”, asked the mixed teams to listen to the business idea developed by the secondary school students, refine it and make it clearer, by creating a mini communication campaign. Each group worked on target audiences, buyer personas, slogans, key messages, social media posts or posters, website mock-ups or videos. The process concluded with a three-minute final pitch in front of the jury: no easy task, tackled with group presentations, smiles, mutual support and a great ability to summarise.
For many teachers, it was also an educational surprise. The initial proposal to have students of different ages work together had raised some concerns, but the result demonstrated the value of authentic cooperative learning: the groups were able to tackle the ‘challenge within a challenge’, putting themselves to the test not only on a technical and creative level, but also in managing relationships, roles and time.
The groups, from both middle and high schools, were supported by Chiara Caudera, Marco Serra and Elisa Chierchiello on behalf of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale. An important contribution also came from Paola Mogliotti, director of I3P, which has been hosting the Coding Girls project in the incubator’s premises since 2018, and from the I3P team comprising Arianna Leone, Roberta Guglietti and Eleonora Lavalle, who acted as trainers, hosts and members of the judging panel.
The documentation of the day was enriched by interviews, photos and videos: Chiara Caudera collected materials and testimonials, whilst Professor Antonella Andolina from ITC Sommeiller followed the presentations as a videographer, filming all the final pitches.
The winning teams
“Most Creative” Award: Startup Studio AI
Edoardo Cerminara and Alessandro Scoditti, IC Bruino; Serena Macchiella, IIS Ferrari Mercurino; Elena Vaccarino, IIS Fermi Galilei.
“Most Innovative” Award: Startup ChatSocial
Sofia Ercole, IIS Fermi Galilei; Sofia S. and Chiara F., IC Bruino; Manuel Salerno, ITC Sommeiller; Federico Schirru, IIS Ferrari Mercurino.
“Most Innovative” Award: Startup Think Real
Matteo Bonadonna and Nathan D’Elia, IC Bruino; Giuseppe Desposorio and Davide Matyas, ITC Sommeiller; Letizia Gherra, IIS Fermi Galilei.
The jury
The evaluation of the projects was entrusted to a 13-member jury, comprising teachers, trainers, tutors and representatives from I3P: Francesca Fasanelli, Laura Di Lorenzo, Arianna Leone, Stefano Ebagezio, Elena Francisetti, Riccardo Ricci, Roberta Guglietti, Fabio Fundarò, Marco Crosa, Marco Serra, Barbara Dragonetti, Anastasia Dominguez Burzio and Daniele Battaglia.
Coding Girls & Women thus confirms its ability to adapt to local contexts and experiment with new training formats. In Turin, digital skills education has also become education in collaboration: a training ground for learning to communicate an idea, listen to different points of view, take on responsibility and build trust across generations.
