Coding Girls in Turin

22/05/2023

4 min.

Today, the “Museo del Risparmio” host the final event of the national tour.

Today, the Turin “Museo del Risparmio” will host the final event of the national tour organised by Coding Girls, the programme that orients the new generations towards careers of the future with STEAM. The programme involved 900 students from 42 secondary schools in 12 Italian Regions participated and 33 universities for a total of 176 hours of training, 9 hackathons and 3 more that will be held in September, as well as 40 coaches. These are the stats of the ninth edition of the project conceived by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and supported by the United States Diplomatic Mission to Italy, in collaboration with Microsoft, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and ING Italia.

The pay gap between men and women is less marked in science, mathematics, technology and computer science, according to the most recent Eurostat Report, that nonetheless illustrates how the route to equality and inclusion is still long. And this is why it is so important to support projects that eliminates gender bias from early childhood, like Coding Girls, the educational programme conceived to help orient students towards STEM studies and professions.

Currently in its ninth edition, the educational alliance guided by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, Fondazione Mondo Digitale, involves schools, families, universities, companies, and public and private organisations. Moreover, the successful synergy continues with the United States Diplomatic Mission to Italy, in collaboration with Microsoft, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and ING Italia.

The national tour of the ninth edition organised creative coding challenges involving 900 students from 50 second-degree secondary schools, with 34 universities for a total of 176 hours of training, 40 coaches, 9 hackathons (Rome, Milan, Gorizia, Salerno, Bari, Pisa, Palermo, Cagliari, Naples) and 3 more (Bologna, Perugia, Ancona) that will be held in September. Universities reinforce orientation activities by collaborating actively with the programme through their departments, hosting hackathons, and involving their students as tutors and role models.

In collaboration with Microsoft, training was also provided on cybersecurity to develop secure apps. In March, there was a double appointment with “Io conto” that allowed students to prepare for the Global Money Week with a hackathon organised in collaboration with ING to create an app to plan financial projects securely.

At the end of each training sessions, hackathons were organised in Italian universities, with creative challenges to design service or assistance apps. The students worked in groups, also developing pitches for the juries. The expert assigned awards based on three categories: inclusion, creativity, and innovation. The projects were developed with marvel, a web and mobile-based prototyping platform, and an open source Arduino kit.

Amongst the winning projects of the various hackathons, there was an application developed in Rome to help blind people to manage their finances independently and one application for the exchange of recyclable materials developed in Salerno. In Pisa, the winning award provides information on the state of rights and freedom in various countries, while, in Palermo, students developed a sustainable smart room to contain expenses and electricity waste.

Coding Girls in Turin is in its fourth year, the first after the previous three-year programme (2019-21). It involved 16 schools (5 first-degree and 11 second-degree secondary schools in Turin and its provinces. The programme delivered 130 hours of on-site training; 5 for each middle school, in three meetings, and 10 for each secondary school, in five meetings.

Conference Speakers

Giovanna Paladino, Director and Curator, Museo del Risparmio
Mirta Michilli, Director General, Fondazione Mondo Digitale
Chiara Mizzi, Director External Relations and Philanthropies, Microsoft Italia
Silvia Colombo, Head of Communication & CSR, ING Italia
Paola Sabbione, Programme Manager, “Obiettivo Cultura,” Compagnia di San Paolo
Carlotta Salerno, Councillor for Education, Scholastic Real Estate, Youth Policy, Suburbs and Urban Regeneration, City of Turin

From the left: Paola Sabbione, Mirta Michilli, Rosanna Ventrella, Chiara Mizzi, Silvia Colombo

News about the individual hackathons:

Cagliari The Measure of Social Impact
Palermo Everything is Transformed
Pisa An App for Freedom of Choice
Bari The App of the Future
Salerno A Needed App
Udine Shall We Share It?
Varese “Io Conto” in Varese
Rome “Io Conto” in Rome

On-line Press Kit

Declarations

“We are happy to have hosted the last stage of an important project such as Coding Girls at the “Museo del Risparmio,” which concretely highlights how studies and career paths oriented towards scientific, technological and mathematical disciplines (STEM), however difficult they may appear, offer greater employment opportunities. I also believe that in order to counter the most widespread gender stereotypes, women need room for improvement in terms of self-awareness. It is therefore important to teach girls to assert themselves and engage in every area, from studying to managing money from an early age. As our latest survey shows, families - and mothers in particular - represent a fundamental model for helping adolescents face the future via the acquisition of financial education skills that are essential for looking at possible difficulties with serenity and confidence in one's abilities.”

Giovanna Paladino, Director and Curator, Museo del Risparmio

“Why do we believe it is important to promote an expanded school-university-institutions and business training ecosystem? Because there is still so much need to support young women in fully grasping the studies and career opportunities provided by technological and scientific progress. Steps forward have been taken to reduce the gender gap in the workplace but at this rate the global gender gap will not be overcome for another 132 years! In 2022, for the first time, the female students enrolled in the Physics BA at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia exceeded the number of male students. With Coding Girls, we work to ensure that these cases no longer make the news and that opportunities are within everyone's reach, regardless of their context of origin and gender. Also, in collaboration with male colleagues, who have actively participated in the programme, this year.”

Mirta Michilli, Director General, Fondazione Mondo Digitale

“We are happy to have participated in the ninth edition of the Coding Girls programme which sees us alongside the Fondazione Mondo Digitale opening up opportunities in the technological and scientific world to more and more young students. In particular, this year we collaborated on promoting initiatives aimed at supporting studies and career paths related to the world of cybersecurity, an area that requires multidisciplinary skills to deal with increasingly sophisticated and malicious cyberattacks. Helping public and private organizations to protect themselves by seizing all the advantages of digital tools is a scenario on which we have worked to help girls move towards career paths that are increasingly in demand by the market.”

Chiara Mizzi, Director External Relations and Philanthropies, Microsoft Italia

“With Coding Girls, we have addressed the role of technology and digital tools for financial education, a combination in which - as a pioneer of digital banking in Italy - we have always believed in. We asked boys and girls between the ages of 16 and 19 to develop an app that could help manage savings and plan economic resources for projects. A great interest emerged on the topic and the importance of technology which, if well directed and studied, is a powerful enabler for greater financial awareness in terms of accessibility, user involvement, control, and planning. Young digital natives can bring a new and modern vision to the ways in which we interact with financial services, one that is more immediate and closer to the user.”

Silvia Colombo, Head of External Communication & Community Investments, ING Italia

“Sciences are a very important cultural heritage, especially in learning, because they accompany people throughout their lives. Technology and science are important for any type of work, and we don't even know what the professions of the future will be! So, the many new skills that Coding Girls is bringing out in students, to get involved and become protagonists of challenging projects, lead to something new.”

Paola Sabbione, Programme Manager, Obiettivo Cultura, Compagnia di San Paolo

“Today's world is characterized by a great complexity and fragmentation, making it often difficult for youth to choose an academic or career path that best meets their needs and highlights their talents. We are therefore happy that projects such as Coding Girls provide them with better orientation. The added value of this initiative is the encouragement of the combination of women and science, providing opportunities and a voice to all the girls who are forced to give up for cultural or economic reasons, but who instead constitute a huge resource for schools, universities, and society. A round of applause to the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, because it never stops investing in young people and their training.”

Carlotta Salerno, Councillor for Education, Scholastic Real Estate, Youth Policy, Suburbs and Urban Regeneration, City of Turin

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Coding Girls in Turin