I would say find a problem that you care about and find a mentor I would say sign up for Technovation because that really has all the elements and the support systems that you need focus is on kids with autism and we got to meet these meet individuals as part of our special education community and that's kind of when we saw our impact and it kind of clicked for us that this is actually making a difference and that's that's Anna it was an unbelievable experience [Music] in the future we want to make it available in many devices and you want to spread it to all be able to help them I want to say that Technovation gave us wings as I mentioned one year to fly in a world of endless opportunities and I would say that if you have that will do something good for the society technology look our best option you can go for an you can implement inspired me by showing me how it's very possible to make your own business and create your own and fight for what you want for what you believe in [Music]

>> 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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>> 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 in which girls develop mobile apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week 12 finalist teams are competing for their chance to win the coveted gold or silver scholarships. With us today we have two regional ambassadors from Turkey. Resat Bozkir, >> Hi. >> And Sedat Yalcin. >> Yes. >> Thank you so much for being here today. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for your hospitality. >> Absolutely. So can you tell me, what is a regional manager? What do you guys do? >> Okay, you want to start? >> Okay, regional ambassador. As a regional ambassador, we help with the Technovation program in our country by organizing events and managing locally, for example, this year, we translated all our Turkish language and help other mentors and other students. >> Oh that's wonderful. >> Yes. >> So how many students do you have? >> We have nearly thirty students this year. And we've been working for five years with Technovation. This year we have thirty students. And now, one team is here as a finals team in this one also. >> What are the age groups of your students? >> Middle school and high school. We start at 13 and 18. >> So you mentioned you've been doing this for five years. Have you noticed an increase in girls in tech over the years? >> I think, if I remember those days, only 10% are students who were girls, and now 50% of our students are girls. We participated for very... Not much girls in our group. That is programming, robotics and everything. Now lots of girls do it, like this project. >> That's amazing. So what are you most excited about for this tournament? >> Can you say it again? >> Oh yeah, what are you most excited about for this week for the competition? >> Oh, as I said before, we have one finals team for this ceremony, and this is their first moment in Technovation. And they are the most little ones, our girls. We hope this will be a very good experience for them. And we are really excited to be here. >> That's wonderful. So can you tell me just a little bit more about how girls in Technovation is helping girls in tech, the conversation in general? >> Okay. >> I think it's a good question because lots of students before Technovation, I asked our students, "Do you have any download, any mobile application?" Lot of students would say, "No." "Do you have any, "make a presentation more than hundred people?" They say, "No." "Do you have any ideas about business plan?" They say, "No." "Do you have any ideas about entrepreneurship?" They say, "No." "How about the Technovation program?" They say, "Yes, I succeed. "We made the program "and then we download the mobile application "and we make a presentation, and we make a business plan." They say all of that. Excited about programs like this. >> That's wonderful, and I think you guys are doing such an amazing job. >> Yes. >> Thank you so much for being on theCUBE, Resat and Sedat. We're really excited to have you here, and I hope you have a great trip back to Turkey. (laughs) So we're at Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, stay tuned for more.

>> 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 in which girls develop mobile apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week 12 finalists are competing for their chance to win the coveted gold or silver scholarships. With us today we have Tara Chklovski, the Founder and CEO of Iridescent, Tara thank you so much for being on. >> My pleasure. >> So can you tell us a little bit more about Technovation? What's the event about? >> Yeah, so Technovation is the worlds largest technology program for girls and we inspire them to find problems in their communities and actually create mobile apps and launch startups to solve these problems. And so we operate in 115 countries. >> Wow! >> This year we had about 20 thousand girls register for the program, and right now we see about girls and student ambassadors, regional ambassadors, mentors from 15 countries. So some of the countries are: Nigeria, India, Mexico, Brazil, Ethiopia, Palestine, Spain, and of course, the US and Canada. >> That's wonderful. >> And I think I may be missing a couple countries. >> So, could you tell me more about Iridescent and how Iridescent is involved in Technovation? >> Yeah, totally. So, Iridescent is the parent non-profit and we started in 2006, our mission is to empower underserved communities, especially girls and women to become innovators and creators of technology and engineering, and so it requires them feeling that they have a place at the table and being empowered to actually create new solutions, and not just be the users of solutions. >> That's wonderful. Can you tell us some success stories from past winners? >> Yeah, totally. So Technovation is unusual because it's 100 hour, pretty robust, almost like a bootcamp where, you don't need to have any prior knowledge of computer science or entrepreneurship, and you go through and have a completely finished product. And so, in the early years, in say 2010, the winners of the New York regional competition actually created an Uber-like app. And this was before Uber was actually known as a ride sharing. And a team from I think the Bay area created a Pinterest-like app. And so these girls are ahead of the times because, I mean everybody knows teenagers are ahead of their time, and girls are very active users of technology, and this puts into their hands that they become creators. But some of the success stories, one of our biggest one is Emma Yang, she was named like the top 10 under 10 to watch out for, but she created an app for her grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, and she could, it would help memory training. And recently, she was actually featured in Apple's WWDC Conference when Tim Cook played the video showcasing the developer and their families, and so she was one of them on the video, so, we felt incredibly proud that we were the ones to bring her into technology. >> That's wonderful. So can you tell me more about how Technovation is helping these girls? >> Yeah, so Technovation again is unusual, because it's not like we're going to cram a whole bunch of coding and programming down your throats, it's rather, first the question is, find the problem that you're passionate about in your community, and then, oh by the way, did you know you could use technology to solve that problem? And so that real world application is very important for a new newcomer to the field, and so we bring thousands and thousands of young girls who would never dream about going into computer science into this field, so, just to give some numbers, annually, we have about 64 thousand undergraduates in computer science as a country, and only 10 thousand of them are women. >> Wow. >> And so just to give you a sense of the scale of Technovation, we have about 12 thousand Technovation alumni now in college and in the workforce. Every year we add about five thousand girls, and so that's 50% of our national output of the number of computer science graduates, right, like undergraduate women. And so we are significantly moving the needle, but it's taken a long time, I mean, this is our 13th year. And so that is the message that to build this community of young women leaders and entrepreneurs, they need to see more like themselves and so it takes time to get to get to that starting with a few girls, and so yeah, this year we have 20 thousand. >> How do you think the Girls in tech community is evolving as a whole? >> I think the coding community is becoming very, is becoming, it's becoming a movement, it's taken 10 years, and so I think you can see the change in the AP computer science results this year, you're seeing more and more girls becoming interested in computer science. But again, there's a big problem of access still, I mean, low income groups do not have access to, to coding programs in their communities, and I think, there's room for us to improve and add there. I think the Girls in tech community is vibrant, in Silicon Valley, but Silicon Valley is a tiny place in the world, as you can see, right? So I think, yes it's there, but we are very small, there's a lot of room, and there's a lot of room for other organizations to take up the challenge. >> That's awesome. So, last question: What advice would you give for girls who are interested in technology? >> I would say, find a problem that you care about, and find a mentor, I would say sign up for Technovation, because that really has all the elements and the support systems that you need, it's much more than an hour of code. You really need to see all elements of what technology can bring, and the change that you can enable. So I would definitely say yeah, sign up for Technovation, because it helps you make a real change in the world. >> That's awesome, thank you so much for being on theCUBE today. >> My pleasure. >> It's so inspiring what you're doing. >> Thank you! >> Thanks for being here, we're at Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, stay tuned for more. (bubbly music)

>> 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 in which girls develop apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week 12 finalist teams are competing for their chance to win the coveted gold or silver scholarships. With us today from Mexico we have Edutec and they're consisted of Miriam, Angelica, Luna, and Medina. We have then Luzdhy Huerta and Citalli Ruiz Puga, Ivana Michelle Orozco Lopez, Cesar Valdez, Consuelo Sarahi Checa Navarro, and Vanessa Dinorah Perez Ramirez. Congratulations and welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> So your app, Care For Me, tell us more about that. >> Who wants to tell? Well, this application, Care For Me, is an app that is focused on the caregiver of a patient with Alzheimer. That normally turns out one person in the family. So during the process of the Alzheimer disease, it's a very difficult situation for all the family. But when they developed the application, they started thinking of the caregiver because sometimes they lost in all the disease. So they developed the application so the caregiver has more support and tools in order to provide very good care for the patient, and as well for themselves. >> And what was the inspiration to create this app? >> Somebody wants to answer that? What is the inspiration? >> My teammate Tivana had a grandma who suffered this disease, so we inspire in this case. >> Well, that's wonderful that you're doing that, and I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people. So what made you join Technovation? (speaks in foreign language) >> Let me just translate it? >> Sure. >> They knew about Technovation because an invitation from the university that we all belong that is (speaks in foreign language). And they mentioned that there were some courses about technology, especially for the science mobile application. (speaks in foreign language) >> Then they mentioned when the course was starting, they informed what is Technovation about, and they know that they have to develop an application with a social impact, so they have to attack some problematic they see in their communities. And then they get very excited to help people, to help another. And at that time, that's where they knew each other because they didn't previously know each other before the competition. >> So how did you all meet? And how did you decide to make this team? (speaks in foreign language) >> So the course is offered by the University of Guadalajara. We offer app inventor and marketing, we brought some experts after some courses. Roughly December, the girls all got together, they didn't know each other, and they decided to form a team, and we're here now, right? (laughs) >> And what are you most excited about for this competition? (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) >> She's saying that... Sorry. She's saying that the most exciting about all this and working together is about the opportunity to help other people, and have an impact, and that's why they enjoy working together. >> That's so inspiring. So how do you think Technovation is helping the larger girls in tech conversation? (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) >> She's saying that the most impact that they have about these kind of programs is about getting all the fears that you think you have that may be stopping from doing something, so you have to believe that you can to solve all these fears. >> That's awesome. (laughs) So who do you think is the team to beat? Who's the competition? (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) >> I think the focus of Technovation is to not pit girls against each other, but to work on themselves and on their project, and hope for the best, I guess. (laughs) >> That's a wonderful perspective to have on this. I want to thank you all so much for being on theCUBE, and congratulations on becoming a finalist, and good luck on your pitch tomorrow. >> Thank you. >> We're here at Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018 here in Santa Clara, California. Stay tuned for more. (upbeat music)

>> From Santa Clara, California, in the heart of silicone valley, it's The Cube, covering Technovations, World Pitch 2018. Now, here's Sonia Tegare. >> Hi, welcome back. I'm Sonia Tegare, here with The Cube in Santa Clara, California covering Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, a pitch competition for girls to develop applications in order to create positive change in the world. This week 12 finalist teams are competing for their chance to win the gold and silver scholarships. With us today, we have Team Join Us from Spain. We have Andrea Escortell, Ines Mut, and Amelia Gonzalez and with them we have their mentors. So, we have Josefa Ribes and we have Rosa Maria Bosch. Thank you for being on The Cube. >> Thanks to you. Thanks. >> So, I wanted to ask you, what is your app Join Us? >> It's for join old people and the young people because the old people live alone so he needs help and the young people need travel and visit new places, so the app, the app connect the people. >> Are there any personal connections or reasons why you decided to make this app? >> (speaking in foreign language) >> It's a problem. >> Because it's a general problem in the world. >> What made you decide to join Technovation? >> I showed the teacher the Technovation challenge and they are very excited they were very excited to participate because it's a very, very best thing for us because seeing how there are a lot of people that is alone in their house, and it's opportunity to solve a real problem. >> So how does the app work? How do you use it? >> (speaking in foreign language) >> The link is different for the interested parties. We did survey and that is necessary service of the local consul to guarantee and they will play our own for both parties. >> That's amazing. It's so inspiring to see you all work on this. Is this your first time to America? >> Yes. >> How are you liking it so far? >> Yes. >> Really like it? >> Yes. >> Well I want to thank you so much for being on the Cube, this app seems amazing and we hope you come on some other time. I'm Sonia Tegare, here with the Cube at Technovations World Pitch Summit 2018. Stay tuned for more.

>> 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 who develop mobile apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week, 12 finalists are competing for their chance to win the gold or silver scholarships. With us right now, we have, from Delhi, India Team Cantavits. So we have Sneha Agarwal, Aditi Jain, Shriya Shukla. Then we have Kritika Sharma, and then we have Shraddha Chugh. With them is their coach, Archana Jain. So congratulations, and welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> So your app, Eedo, tell us more about that. >> So Eedo is a late Latin word for electronic waste. our app is all about electronic waste. Electronic waste is electronic equipment which are not in a working condition right now. So what we do is connect people who generate e-waste to people who recycle it in an eco-friendly manner without harming the environment, and health problems. Because, generally people, what they do is, they dispose their e-waste as regular trash, or they just throw it in the dustbins, or maybe sell it to the local scrap dealers which harm the environment illegally, and harms all the human health. So our app is just about connecting e-waste generators and e-waste recyclers, to not harm environment and human health from e-waste dispos&al. >> It sounds like it could have quite the social impact. What inspired you all to create this app? >> Actually, it was one of the potential ideas when we had a brainstorming session to choose an idea for an app for Technovation challenge, but then we read a grave article about e-waste in a national daily, and that motivated us further, and we decided to make an app to solve this issue. >> What inspired you to join Technovation? >> Actually, Technovation always gave us inspiration, and that spirit to just go into the field of information and technology and create cool apps to solve community issues. I think we were, in 2016, we came to know about Technovation, and just reading about an overview of Technovation, it just gave us that spirit and that enthusiasm to participate in this competition. >> And how did you all create your team? How did you meet? >> She's our teacher at school, and she's the one who introduced us all. I, Aditi, and Shraddha, we have been participating for three years in this competition. This is the third year, and Shriya has been participating for two years. This is her second year, and Sneha is the new one, and she introduced us all. She came up, and we went to her once or twice, then she introduced us to this competition. >> Actually, she appointed all the students, that we should come as a team, >> Yeah >> and go into this competition. >> That's wonderful. So how do you think, being a part of this competition, how has it helped you? Has it made you more interested in technology? >> Yeah, definitely. >> Actually, Technovation gave us the opportunity to go in a world of endless opportunities. Actually, Technovation helped us to actually identify ourselves, identify inner talent so that we solve community issues, and create coding, actually go into coding, and that high tech opportunities. >> Yeah? >> Yeah. >> Just take the microphone. >> You want to add anything? >> I want to add. We also got to learn many things that we'll not learn if we didn't get to know about Technovation. We learned coding, and marketing strategies, which we'll not be able to learn if we not create an app for Technovation. >> Well that's wonderful. >> For me, earlier, coding was a very difficult task. I'm talking three years back, but now, after participating in this event in three years, it has been very easy and it it is very helpful to develop a new career in our life so we can go in the field of software engineering, or many other fields that will be very wonderful for our life. >> That's very inspiring. What are you most excited about this week at the Technovation competition? >> For this week, we're most excited about pitching our app in front of the people so that we can generate awareness about the e-waste problem and our solution to it. >> That's great. Can you tell us a little bit more about how a user can use this app? >> Actually, if I'm a common user, and I have to use my app to dispose of the e-waste, so what will I do? I download the app from the Google Play Store, just post an ad of the e-waste, like, I have a Mumbai phone that's broken now. I just enter the device name, the quantity, and the date and time for collection, and I'll just post the ad. Only that's much work from the generator of e-waste, and then comes in all of recyclers of the e-waste. He'll just see the list of ads which have been posted by the generators of e-waste. He'll click the ad, view it's details, and accept that for pick up. After picking that e-waste from user's doorstep, he'll be given a reasonable amount for the same to the user. Wow, so what advice would you give to other girls who want to join Technovation? >> I want to say that Technovation gave us wings, as I mentioned earlier to fly in a world of endless opportunities, and I would say that if you have that will to do something good for society, technology is the best option you can go for, and you can implement to solve community issues. So, go girls, I would say, go girls in the field of information technology, and do whatever you want. >> Well, that's a great note to end on. Thank you all so much for being here, and congratulations, and good luck on your pitch tomorrow. >> Thank you. >> We are here at Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018 in Santa Clara, California, stay tuned for more. (electronic music)

>> 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 in which girls develop apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week 12 finalists are competing for their chance to win the gold or silver scholarships. With us we have, all the way from Egypt, Team Thunderins, and with us is Yara Elkady and Rahma Medhat with their mentor Karim Abdallah. So congratulations and welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> So your app is called Stray Paws. Tell us more about it. >> So our app aims to solve the problem of street animals. It basically gives the user the ability to adopt animals through our app because in our hometown the adoption process is very difficult, and it also helps to rescue injured animals in the street. >> So what inspired you to create this app? >> Because in Egypt there are several campaigns that are launched every year to poison any street animals which leaves hundreds of cats and dogs dying. So we just want to help the animals because there are no specific rules to protect them, and they are growing in number, like in every street there will be stray animals, so we want to help them to have a better life. And we want stop the killing of them. >> Well that's a great cause to be a part of. So how would a user use the app? >> Okay first of all we have two features the adoption and the rescue. The user could open up our app and there will be three buttons. For the first button is the adopt button and the second is the rescue. He will just pick adopt if he wants to adopt and then he can pick to add a pet for adoption. If you have a pet to offer for adoption, he can add them and all its information in our app, and then other users who wish to adopt could enter another button in our app, and open the screen and just look through a gallery of pets that are available for adoption. And then pick the pet he wants, and then he can contact the owner of the pet directly. >> Wow. So Rahma, maybe you can tell us, how did you guys get involved in Technovation? >> We first of all we have known the competition at March and we only had a month and a half to finish our project. Yes, so we known Karim and he has helped us a lot. Yes and that's all. >> And Karim can you tell us more about how it was mentoring these two? >> Yeah I met them last March. Met them once in physical and after that we did all the job online by online meeting via Skype or messenger or something like that but they did a great job in very short time. >> And how excited are you for their pitch tomorrow? >> Very exciting, we hope to win tomorrow. >> And so how did you all find out about Technovation? >> We found that we were in a workshop for teen entrepreneurs and then they told us about the competition and we found out and we registered the next day. >> Okay. So how do you think Technovation is going to help you in your careers? >> It's going to help me greatly because I wish to be an entrepreneur in the future and make a business, and it inspired me by showing me how it's very possible to make your own business and create your own and fight for what you want, for what you believe in and it's not that hard. If you want it you can do it. And it's very inspirational to be able to make a whole project in a short time and that it works. And it's really great. >> And what advice would you give to young girls who want to join Technovation some day? >> I highly advise them to join because it will inspire them a lot, and show them that it's not impossible to create something that you are proud of and it will be an experience you won't forget. >> And last question, what are you most excited about this week for the competition? >> The pitch because we have been practicing for a long time and I want to just show our project to the world. And we're very excited to pitch in front of many people. >> Well that's great. Thank you so much for being on theCUBE. I am really excited by your app and I hope your pitch goes well. >> Thank you. >> We're here at the Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, stay tuned for more. (energetic music)

>> 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 in which girls develop mobile apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week, 12 finalists are competing for their chance to win the coveted gold or silver scholarships. With us today from the state of Palestine, we have team TMWZ and that stands for Tamara Awaisa, and we have Masa Halawa, Wasan Al-Sayed, and Zubaida Al-Sadder, and their mentor is Yamama Mahdi Shakaa. Congratulations and welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So your app, Be a Firefighter, tell us more about that. >> Who want to start? >> Masa? >> So Be a Firefighter is a virtual reality game that provide awareness and entertainment to let users be more aware about the fire situation and be able to extinguish it and prevent fire from happening. >> That's awesome, and what was the reason that you decided to make this app? >> Several differents came to our school and visit us and they told us that there is a lot of fire accident. Because of fire accident, loses and destruction, and death, because of that we decide why we, why we want to (nervous laughter) solve this problem. Because of that we decided to make this app. >> That's wonderful. >> So what's the mission of your team? >> We want to help many people, so in the future we want to make it available in many devices and we want to spread it to all people to help them. >> Oh that's wonderful. (giggling) So why did you decide to join Technovation? >> We decided to join Technovation because we want to make a change in our own way and help others. So we find Technovation and we got into it. >> That's awesome, so did you find out online or did you find out through a chapter? >> We find it in our school. Our teachers told us about that challenge. >> And where do you hope to see this app in five years if you get funding? >> We want to make it available on the web, providing more level for all ages and allow the player to compete on social media like Facebook. Also we want to make a version for hospital and organization with more control that allows the the players to do the action with their hands. >> I hope you achieve that. >> Yeah we hope. >> What are you most excited about this week at Technovation? >> Actually for all of these tours, and the visiting Google and visiting NASA and today we visited Nvidia. We were so exciting, it's so amazing places and companies. And also we are so exciting for the presentation and the booth. We are practicing so much so yeah, this feels like. >> Very exciting. How did you all meet? >> And we want to represent Palestine well, so that's real exciting too. What's that again, yeah? Oh yeah, we meet in the school, we are in the same class at school and we are sitting next to each other. And we are friends from two years. >> Are you all in high school? >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay well thank you so much for being on theCUBE. I'm so excited for your app and I hope you see it in the App Store. (giggling) Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> We are here at Technovations World Pitch Summit 2018. I'm Sonia Tagare, stay tuned for more. (digital music)

>> 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 in which girls develop mobile apps in order to create positive change in the world. This week, 12 finalist teams are competing for their chance to win the coveted gold or silver scholarships. With us today, from our very own Cupertino, California, we have team FemStem with: Harini Arumugam, Eesha Ramkumar, and Ria Doshi, welcome. (together) - Thank you! >> So, your app, Alleviate, tell us more about that. >> So our app helps people with autism overcome the challenges they face in their daily life. We specialize in interaction skills and helping them relax in overwhelming situations. >> That's awesome, so how does it work? How would a user use it? >> So, I think the first thing you see is the sign up and login page, where a user can either signup saying they're verbal or non-verbal, meaning they can use their voice or can't, and our app personalizes our feature based on that. >> Awesome. >> So, one of the aspects of our app is actually a relaxation feature, and a lot of people with autism, they struggled with anxiety and being-- they're very hyper-sensitive in overwhelming situations, so we do provide meditative tracks, relaxing music, and an interactive reading simulator for them. >> So our other feature is interaction, and so we split it for both non-verbal and verbal individuals. So for non-verbal individuals, the app verbally asks a question, and they must select yes or no in response to that question. And for verbal users we actually use speech recognition to have them respond to the app, and we, take that input and compare it to the image, so. >> Sounds like this could help a lot of people. >> Yeah. (all laugh excitedly) >> Why did you guys decide to make it in the first place? >> So in our school we actually have a really big special education system, and as a result, we've grown up with a lot of kids with autism, and we have first hand experience to struggles that they face in our classroom, and a lot of the times, they receive negative attention because of it, and we wanted to do something about this issue, because we felt that this was not only something that affected our school, but also a global issue, in fact people around the world, so we thought by, with this project, we would really be impacting peoples lives. >> That's awesome. So what made you decide to join Technovation? >> So I think, there was a Technovation club at our school, and actually, I didn't Eesha or Harini before Technovation, so we all signed up for the club because we thought it was really interesting and at the first club meeting we kind of looked at each other and we were like hey, do you want to be a team? And so that's kind of how our Technovation journey started. >> That's awesome. So why did you choose the name FemStem? (laughing) - Well, we're all females, and that's kind of what Technovation is about, empowering females and, I mean, to speak to this, I think we're all like so passionate about STEM and, just combining them, we played around with the words a little bit, that's FemStem. >> That's awesome. So how do you think Technovation is helping the overall girls in tech conversation in the community? >> I think that Technovation gives us a lot of confidence, you know, we're new to the whole app building, that kind of structure. And being able to see something that we do have an impact, I think that confidence is really what girls should be looking out for. >> Yeah, and definitely, since none of us knew app development before coming into Technovation, it really gave us the opportunity to explore, create something that helped our community and actually have an impact on the world through technology. >> I was looking to add, so on a general level, I think that one of the biggest issues of today is that girls who are young age have little to no exposure in the STEM field, and I think Technovation really helps them develop and interest in STEM, and develop the confidence they need; and the ability to ask questions and receive help, so I think that's something that Technovation's really done for all of us. >> That's great, so you definitely encourage other girls-- >> Yes, definitely, yeah. >> That's awesome, and what's the best thing that's been happening in the competition so far? >> We've gotten to meet a lot of people around the world, that's the coolest thing that I can ask for. It doesn't happen like on a normal day, so I think this is really something that we've all been looking forward to. >> And speaking to our Technovation journey, we actually got to collaborate with students. Our app focus is on kids with autism, and we got to meet individuals as part of our special education community, and that's kind of when we saw our impact, and it kind of clicked for us that this is actually making a difference, and that's, that's like, it was an unbelievable experience. >> And it was great to see actually that our app had an impact on these kids, and getting recommendation from our director of para education at our school, who actually recommended our app to different districts in our school because of the impact it had on the kids, which is really nice. >> So where do you see this app in five years, if you can get the funding? >> If we get the funding, definitely we're going to add more features, like facial recognition features, and allowing people with autism to perform emotions that they've practiced. We will also produce a go to market strategy where we actually beta test our app on more kids, outside of our special education community, to ensure it has the impact that we really need to have. >> Congratulations on everything, and good luck for your pitch tomorrow! (all together) - Thank you! >> We're here at Technovation's World Pitch Summit 2018, stay tuned for more. (bubbly music)