In honour of International Girls in ICT Day, NIHERST hosted 108 female students for a series of information and communication technology (ICT) workshops and a hackathon. These events took place over the period 2nd – 4th May 2017 at the NIHERST National Science Centre. Focusing on such topics as Robotics, 3D Printing, Mobile App Development and Computer Construction, the sessions exposed the students to concepts such as coding and programming, and their practical applications in a range of fields. The girls learned skills such as writing code for robots and circuit boards, controlling and giving functionality to these devices. They were also challenged to create a mobile application that solves a real world problem.

Diego Martin North Secondary School emerged winners of the Girls’ Hackathon which included criteria of innovation, presentation, learning experience, elements implemented and overall quality. Their winning application ‘Café App’ allows students to order from their school cafeteria, prior to break or lunch time, without the inconvenience of joining a line. Solutions from other teams were the Anti-bullying App by Siparia West Secondary School which allows students to instantly report incidents of bullying to an authority, and the Donation App by Bishop’s Centenary College which allows the school to post photographs of material or repairs needed by the school, thus encouraging and attracting donations.

Participating schools:

• Arima Central Secondary School
• Bishop’s Centenary College
• Diego Martin North Secondary Schools
• NorthGate College
• Siparia West Secondary School

NIHERST also facilitated a Robotics workshop for fifteen (15) fourth form information technology (IT) students on 5th May 2017 as part of the Girls in ICT celebrations by the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT).

This type of initiative is to help young women to appreciate that they can be creators of technologies and not just users of technologies…it’s about how they can use the technology to solve problems that they are encountering on an everyday basis as young women. — Kyle De Freitas, Instructor with the Department of Computing and Information Technology, UWI

My experience was a great one. I truly did enjoy what I did today. I learnt how to build an app and I definitely what to pursue this as a job in the future. — Renisha Samuel (16 years), Diego Martin North Secondary School