TechSavvy

Upskilling needs no age and time

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Inspiration

Women are historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and this has a range of negative implications for both individual women and society as a whole. Such gender preconceptions may reduce a young girl's interest in STEM fields by 50%, according to studies. For women who do seek careers in technology, discrimination is pervasive in their workplaces. For instance, the gender pay gap is well known, and women are notably underrepresented in technical professions. Progress has been slow despite efforts to solve this issue, which has persisted for a long time. As a result, we created Techsavvy, an all-in-one platform that works with women to lessen gender bias and assist young girls in preparing for careers in technology.

What it does

Techsavvy is a community-based platform with the goal of assisting women of all ages in establishing successful careers in the technology sector. We believe that empowering should begin at an early age. As a result, we start by educating young girls and continue to support them until they secure employment in the Technology industry or start their own businesses.

Flowchart

Although there are other platforms like ours, we stand unique because we cater to women of all ages and concentrate on not only lessening gender bias today but also eliminating it in the future. Along with technical content, we provide anecdotes of experiences from trailblazing women that shattered the glass ceiling to encourage other women to stand up for themselves. Along with individual empowerment, we advocate for reforms to eradicate gender discrimination in corporate workspaces. According to the user's age, our site is separated into the following categories.

1) 6-12 age group: For young girls in this age range, we provide courses to expose them to computer science, quick interactive projects to put the ideas into practice, and workshops for parents to support their girls.

2) 12-18 age group: For girls of this age, we have courses and projects to learn advanced concepts and become acquainted with the world of programming.

3) 18-21 age group: For women in this category, apart from skill development courses, we offer information on internships, hackathons, writing research papers, and support from designated mentors to help them advance their careers in the tech sector. They can interact with other members of the Techsavvy community and seek advice and direction by talking to them.

4) 21 and above: This channel is designed for women with a strong professional foundation but require further assistance in upgrading their skills. They are also given advice on defending themselves when faced with discrimination. They can learn better pay negotiations, resume restructuring and discussions with mentors to get guidance on the gender bias they face in their offices. Women interested in startups can connect with the community for crowdfunding, data analytics on their business idea and marketing ideas to pitch their products efficiently.

To run the prototype, on the register page, select the age group to view its features. To navigate to other age groups, restart the prototype and select the next age group.

How we built it

With a strong focus on the idea, we built an interactive prototype using Figma. When a user registers with their username and password, their age is also obtained to direct them to the right channel. To create an application, we plan on using ReactJS for the front end to create efficient user interfaces and NodeJS for the back end. For the AI-based presentation support that includes speech and text analysis, we plan on integrating the API keys from platforms like Grammarly and QuilBot and implementing the API.
Most AI-based resume analysers are gender discriminative. Hence, we plan on taking careful measures to reduce bias in AI by creating a resume analyser that provides feedback on the user’s skills regardless of their gender by using unbiased data, eliminating gender-specific terms and regularly test and validate the algorithm.

Challenges we ran into

We faced challenges in structuring courses that are age-appropriate, of high quality and informative. Building a strong community requires dedicated mentors. It was difficult to assign mentors for all students, due to which we also opted for recruiting mentors that are interested in tutoring young minds. The development team would need to secure adequate funding and resources to support the development, testing, and ongoing maintenance of the app. As a free platform for all to use, Techsavvy will have to run on donations from members, hence funding and resources pose potential challenges.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Young girls and women can improve their technical skills and get helpful materials and advice from Techsavvy, which also helps them be ready for other parts of their jobs and personal lives. By tailoring the content and guidance to specific age groups, we ensure that the girls receive age-appropriate information and support. The use of mentors and workshops also helps to provide personalized guidance and support, which can be valuable to young girls as they navigate the challenges of learning new skills. The use of a variety of programming languages, applications, and tools can aid in giving the girls the skills they need to be successful in the tech sector. The emphasis on volunteering, hackathons, and internships can also offer beneficial networking opportunities and hands-on experience.

Furthermore laudable is the community's emphasis on counselling and assistance for working women. It can help to empower women and develop their careers to provide them with tools to negotiate salary discrepancies, enhance their presentations, and upskill themselves. Finally, a creative and inclusive method of financing brand-new concepts and businesses is the crowdfunding option for women entrepreneurs. We assist in levelling the playing field and advancing equality by giving women a forum to share their thoughts and gain support from people all over the world.

What we learned

From our personal experiences and through our research for this app, we learned a lot about the subtle but prevalent gender biases in the technology industry. We also learned to closely analyse the performative gender equality campaigns of companies and stand up for ourselves when faced with discrimination in workplaces. We also gained knowledge on various solutions that help tackle bias and appreciate more diversity in the technology industry.

What's next for TechSavvy

  • We would like to move forward with the idea and create a fully functioning application.
  • Conducting market research by conducting surveys, focus groups and analysing industry trends.
  • Identifying potential partners and collaborators.
  • We plan on storing our data in cloud and enhancing the existing features by letting the members of the Techsavvy community contribute to its development.

Built With

  • figma
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