Written by volunteer writer Alison Perch
In June 2020, TechGirlz ran its first-ever virtual Entrepreneur TechCamp. During the week-long online camp, middle school girls generated startup ideas, developed prototypes, and presented their final business plans.
Reeva Khokhar, who volunteered as a teaching assistant (TA), believes entrepreneurship is an essential skill in today’s society.
“Entrepreneurship creates jobs, makes social impacts, contributes to the global economy, and much more. Due to all these reasons, it is very important that students understand it,” she explains.
As a TA, Reeva enjoyed assisting girls in developing their prototypes and watching them present their ideas at the end of camp.
“It was truly amazing to see the girls work their way through, especially because the software was so new to them. In addition, it was very nice to see them all present their prototypes at the last day of the camp. It was clearly visible how much effort each girl had put into their prototype and presentation,” Reeva says.
Reeva appreciated the wide variety of business concepts, from crafting to online education to saving endangered species. “There were girls of all ages in the workshop and it was amazing to see the different ideas the girls had and how different their thought processes were,” she explains.
As a 9th grader, Reeva appreciated the opportunity to share knowledge with her peers and offer support. She loves applying her coding skills — including HTML, CSS, Python, and Java — to help others. In her spare time, she enjoys programming, learning new areas of technology (including machine learning and AI), and playing badminton & soccer.
For anyone interested in running their own Entrepreneur TechCamp, Reeva emphasizes that instructors should explain the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.
“Anyone leading this camp should make sure the girls understand what entrepreneurship is, challenges an entrepreneur must face, and things an entrepreneur needs to think about, [such as] competition [and] uniqueness of creation,” Reeva says.
Did you know you can run your own summer camp using our free lesson plans? Start planning for next summer and access our TechCamp in a Box materials today!
