Coding Girls Hackathons

14/04/2023

2 min.

A challenge for two schools from Gorizia today at the University of Udine

Hackathons continue at Italian universities, thanks to Coding Girls, the large educational consortium born in 2014 which has developed a programme to train the new generations on Steam and orient them towards the careers of the future.

Now in its ninth edition, the program relies on a large educational consortium led by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, which involves schools, families, universities, companies and public and private organizations. A fruitful synergy continues with the US Diplomatic Mission in Italy, and in collaboration with Microsoft, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and ING Italia.

In its ninth edition, the project involves 900 students from 42 second-degree secondary schools, for a total of 176 hours of training, 12 hackathons (Rome, Milan, Gorizia, Salerno, Bari, Pisa, Palermo, Cagliari, Naples, Bologna, Perugia, Ancona), and the work of 40 coaches. Universities strengthen orientation activities by actively collaborating in the training program through individual departments, hosting hackathons, and involving university students as tutors.

Cybersecurity issues are explored with Microsoft to create mobile apps, based on the Open Web Application Security Project. In the double "I Count" appointment in March, students participated in a hackathon with ING to design a financial planning app for Global Money Week.

As we anticipated in the week's agenda, the next hackathon will be held today, April 14, at the University of Udine, one of our partners since 2020. The protagonists are 38 students from the Dante Alighieri and Galilei Pacassi–Fermi Schools in Gorizia. During the challenge, the students will be assisted by Coaches Lorenzo Bellina and Cristiano Gosetti.

Between the end of March and the beginning of April, each of the two schools hosted two two-hour meetings. Coaches Cristiano Gosetti and Lorenzo Bellina, students on the master’s degree in computer science programme, deepened students’ knowledge of applications for mobile devices, proposing that participants use software to design an app. The workshops were organized with the support of professors Patrizia Stabon ∫ Barbara Olivo (Isis "Dante Alighieri") and professors Marco Corbatto and Sara Scarazzolo (Isis "Galilei Fermi Pacassi").

Cristiano with the Dante Alighieri students

Lorenzo with the Galilei Fermi Pacassi students

Two more challenges are scheduled in April at the University of Salerno (April 20) and at the University of Bari (April 21).

Implementing an App is a Creative Process

Coding Girls renews the synergy between University, Fondazione Mondo Digitale and the local schools with which we have been collaborating for years to promote the cultural growth of the new generations. The laboratory meetings represent an opportunity to show students how fascinating information technology can be, if free from prejudice and gender stereotypes. Implementing an app is a creative process that brings into play some of the components of information technology, ranging from the ability to find original and innovative solutions to a real problem to the design of a usable and accessible interface and to the rigor of programming and the evaluation of the work performed.

Students followed the meetings carefully, showing particular interest in accessibility issues. They reflected on the fact that the target audience of an app is not necessarily made up only of young people. It may be broad and varied in terms of age, culture, inclinations, and disabilities. They then asked for further information on how content can be made adaptive and accessible for a blind person, for example. Some participants were surprised to learn that those involved in computer science not only take care of the programming aspects but must consider a whole series of social, economic and cultural aspects that precede the writing of the code, too.

Antonina Dattolo, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Director of the Sasweb Research Laboratory and Coding Girls Coordinator for the University of Udine

Information technology: school meetings for gender equality

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Coding Girls Hackathons