June 21, 2016 (Philadelphia) – TechGirlz, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering girls to be future technology leaders, will host its fifth annual Entrepreneurship Camp at Villanova University in Villanova, PA from July 11-15.
The week-long day camp will host 26 girls, whose ideas will lead to the presentation of their prototype and business plan on the final day of camp. Members of the Philadelphia’s startup leaders and developers will guide the girls by will guide the girls by providing support, sharing wisdom and giving them an innovation lab to work in when creating and implementing these ideas. The camp is designed to address the fact that women, according to the Kauffman Foundation, lead only three percent of all tech startups.
“Villanova is proud to host the fifth anniversary of the Techgirlz Entrepreneur Summer Camp, and to offer our brand new Idea Accelerator as a place for the girls to build and present their ideas,” said II Luscri, Executive Director, Villanova Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship Institute. “With this sponsorship, Villanova is looking forward to diving into the Philly Tech startup scene and helping to further expand this important community.”
As the TechGirlz camp continues to grow, the organization continues to see a spike in registrants. This year, 40 girls requested to attend. The leadership at TechGirlz went through an intense selection process and chose 26 girls to come present and build their ideas at camp this year.
“We are excited to be celebrating our fifth anniversary of TechGirlz Entrepreneur Camp this year, especially with dedicated sponsors to both education and technology,” said Tracey Welson-Rossman, founder of TechGirlz and chief marketing officer at Chariot Solutions. “It is an honor to have such a respected institution opening their doors to us to help TechGirlz empower future women leaders in the tech industry.”
What’s new this year is the Alumni Program. Adding this program to the camp schedule provides inspirational stories to the young girls attending, showcasing some of the unique, one-of-a-kind campers who started with TechGirlz as attendees. These former ‘campers’ will be able to share how TechGirlz Entrepreneur Camp changed their lives and also talk about their real-life businesses that they’ve created.
“We’ve been lucky enough to work with a number of incredibly bright and passionate girls who have built their ideas with us at camp, are still continuing with their businesses today, and have chosen to come back to camp for our Alumni Program,” said Welson-Rossman.
In addition to the Entrepreneurship Camp that TechGirlz has been hosting for the past five years, they also provide a do-it-yourself program called TechShopz in a Box™. This program allows anyone, anywhere the opportunity to run a workshop on the 32 topics provided. What’s included these TechShopz in a Box™, are workshop plans on a variety of topics from mobile development, to programming with Python and more, a playbook, which provides step-by-step guide to running a workshop, full of helpful tips, pre-made documents, and common procedures as well as the support of the TechGirlz community where a specific girl will be designated to you to ensure that your workshop happens without a hitch.
If you’d like to find out more about TechGirlz, volunteer, sponsor or get involved in TechGirlz’ mission of getting and keeping girls excited and interested in pursuing technology, please visit www.TechGirlz.org.
About TechGirlz
TechGirlz (www.TechGirlz.org) inspires young women to shatter the statistics. The organization’s aim is to help adolescent girls understand that a future in technology does not necessarily equate to “a boring computer job,” but instead transcends the cubicle into nearly every field imaginable. By encouraging women to participate in science and technology today, as well as providing a solid foundation of peers, mentors and positive role models, TechGirlz hopes to spark innovation, exhilaration and motivation in young women to become tomorrow’s tech leaders.
About Villanova
Villanova University was founded in 1842 by the Order of St. Augustine. To this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University’s six colleges.