>> From Santa Clara, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Covering Technovation's World Pitch 2018. Now, here's Sonia Tagare. >> Hi, welcome back, I'm Sonia Tagare here with theCUBE in Santa Clara, California, covering Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, a pitch competition for girls to develop apps in order to create a better, positive change in the world. This week, 12 finalist teams are competing for their chance to win the gold or silver scholarships. With us today, we have on Amy Kim, the Chief Operating Officer for Iridescent. Amy, congratulations, and welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Can you tell me more about Technovation? >> Technovation is a program for girls where girls identify a problem in their community and they build a mobile app and a business plan to help solve that problem. Our girls, this past year we had almost 20,000 girls participate from all around the world. We had about 115 different countries registered this year so we've had really big growth. We are in a ninth year of operation for this program, and Iridescent, who's our mother organization, we're about 13 years old. >> How did you get involved with all of this? >> I actually started off as a mentor and a volunteer here at Iridescent, so I used to volunteer for Technovation team when we used to do a small program in L.A. and San Francisco where girls used to physically come to the studio and do the Technovation program and also I used to be a mentor for our Curiosity Machine program, which is a hands-on engineering design challenge program and competition. I was a volunteer for about four years, and then I came on board as a staff member about four years ago. >> What have you noticed has been the change from when you came on to now? >> I think one thing we have done at Iridescent strategically is grow the program globally, and we did that by making our programs free and all of our curriculum accessible. What we've really relied on is training our volunteers. I think you've talked to some of the mentors, some of the regional ambassadors. The trainer model has really helped us grow, and then we're able to reach more girls at a lower cost. Most of the money that we are able to raise, we are able to serve more children and serve more kids. >> What method do you think that's really helping getting these girls noticing Technovation? Is it online, is it through mentorship? >> Actually a lot of it is word of mouth. We were featured in a documentary called Code Girl about two years ago, and that has helped us get a broader reach, too, but really it's one girl who participates or one volunteer who volunteered with us. And our RAs, our regional ambassadors, in each of their countries they really do a great job promoting on our behalf to get more girls an opportunity to be a part of this program. >> What are you most excited about for this year's competition? >> That's a little tricky, cause we always get a little attached to every team, and we really try hard not to pick a favorite, but I think one thing we've seen this year is we updated our curriculum last year and I think the curriculum has really shown to be really strong and then more and more countries can adapt it. I think just seeing what the girls can accomplish, if you guys, what you'll see is that the girls are tackling really hard problems and they bring their own unique perspectives. Just seeing how they approach a problem is, to me, very exciting. >> What are these girls judged on for their pitches? >> They're mostly judged on a few criteria. One is the actual technical ability of their apps and how well do they solve the problem that they are trying to solve. Also, what is their business plan, is this a doable thing, does this business already exist, what is unique. There will be a little bit of public speaking, also how they present themselves, and the actual technical ability of the apps as well. >> That's great. What do you hope Technovation will bring for the greater girls in tech community? >> I'm a chemist by training, and I was the only woman in my PhD program, and I think one thing that really comes up a lot is that women oftentimes don't have mentors, don't have a community, and I think for these girls, I hope that as they grow and as they go to college and they pursue their career that they have a community that they built from here that will carry on through their career. >> What success stories do you have from past Technovation winners? >> That's a tricky question cause we have so many. We have, sorry, I'm trying to remember her name. We have a student who participated about four years ago and she built an app to help Alzheimer's patients, and what she has done is she has actually created a start-up and has been featured in New York Times before. We have stories like that, but we also have stories like in the slums of India where girls don't have internet, they don't have power everyday, so what they will do is they will code on post-it notes. Then when the power will come on, they will turn on their internet and they will be able to code it on App Inventor altogether in that one hour. We have success that really varies and the way we count our success is really the fact that the girls had an opportunity that they may not have had otherwise. That's really how we count our success. Even if they don't become technology entrepreneurs, our goal really is that they try to tackle something hard, they learn through their failures, and they persisted is really our goal. >> That's wonderful, and we're so glad to be here at Technovation. Thank you for having us on. >> Thank you so much. >> Thanks for being here. I'm Sonia Tagare, and this is Amy Kim, and we're at Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018. Stay tuned for more. 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