Helping Displaced Children and Stray Pets: Western NIS Enterprise Fund Held the Sixth international IT Contest Technovation Girls

On July 13, the sixth Technovation Girls Ukraine Regional Pitch was held, where the Ukrainian teams made of world semi-finalists rolled out prototypes of their apps!

Victoria Repa, the founder and CEO of BetterMe: Health Coaching startup was a special guest at the event and shared tips on how to succeed in turning ideas into profitable and useful global projects.

The jury chose the it girls! team from Lviv and Kamianske, Dnipro region, as a winner of the Ukrainian contest. The girls received a subscription for MasterClass online learning resource and an opportunity to join the YEP Incubator incubation program from Andrii Zaikin.

The it girls! managed to finalize their project despite the war and got into the TOP-100 young programmers of Technovation. Sofiia Tereshchenko, Anastasiia Demchenko and Anastasiia Feskova developed a prototype of the app called Refee, which will help temporarily displaced Ukrainian children abroad. The app will help you translate simple phrases from a foreign language, call a hotline or play a game in just a few clicks (with parental consent).

The judges also pointed out the assertiveness of the Hoomagentesses team from the city of Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia region – the girls have been pitching their ideas for the second year in a row, so they were offered mentoring support from the Animal ID Ukraine and UAnimals projects along with assistance in developing a test case at the city community level.

The girls from Enerhodar Khrystyna, Yana, Veronika, Anastasiia and Mariia haven’t given up the prototype even during the Russian aggression and presented an app called Hoomanizer, which will help find new owners for homeless pets and provide them with good living conditions. The app allows adding animals to the database, track their caretaker status and team up with other caretakers.

In total, about 150 Ukrainian schoolgirls, forming nine teams, signed up for the contest this year. Two teams of girls completed their mobile app prototypes with the help of mentors. Both teams made it to the world semifinals. The girls were working on their own projects for more than three months: from coming up with an idea, designing, drawing up a business plan to developing mobile apps aimed to solve the problems of their communities.

„As kids, we heard practically nothing about role models, about girls who achieved something with their efforts and knowledge! I’m glad that times have changed and now there are many women among entrepreneurs who can serve as an example to follow. And today schoolgirls are these role models. We are happy to contribute to such an important mission and help girls represent Ukraine at the global level. After all, the participants of this contest do not only change the perception of the woman’s role in society or in tech jobs, but also help build a better future for the country due to the development of impact projects,” said Iryna Ozymok, Technovation Regional Ambassador in Ukraine.

Technovation is the world’s largest IT entrepreneurship contest for girls, sponsored by Iridescent, a non-governmental organization supported by the top-rank IT companies of the world – Google, Microsoft, Adobe and others. The program is free for girls. It took just a few years for the initiative that started in the US to grow from 45 participating girls into a global network of 25,000 girls in over 100 countries. Ukraine hosts the program for the fifth year in a row.

Western NIS Enterprise Fund is the main partner of the program in Ukraine.