We filled the classrooms with the sounds and noises of keyboards, of small exclamations of joy when things worked out right … and then we clapped. We clapped for the works that kept some of them busy during recess, too (what a joy!). We clapped for the fun ideas and we clapped when we reached the end!
And now I turn to the female students, the future Coding Girls, and to all the students who in the first five minutes of the lesson told me “I can’t do this” and then at the end smiled, exclaiming “I managed!” This is the beauty of computer science (and life!): facing problems that seem insurmountable and then smiling at how we resolve them.
Never stop pushing yourself beyond your limits! Continue to invent solutions, write algorithms and starting all over again.
The training day with the young women in Turin is described by Valeria Cristino, 20, who is in her second year of Computer Engineering Programme at Sapienza University of Rome.
Valeria discovered Coding Girls when she was a student at IIS Spallanzani in Tivoli and, now, she is also a coach for the “Ambizione Italia for Schools” Programme. Moreover, she is also involved in the “N4M3” start-up, conceived at the Phyrtual Factory, the inclusive accelerator for young men and women at the Phyrtual Innovation Gym.
"Thousands of passions, a million ideas and not enough time to experience all of them” is Valeria describes herself in less than one hundred characters. This time, however, we asked her for a double feat: describe the experience as a coach in Turin, during the preparatory training sessions for the Coding Girls Tours and her first experience at the Space Apps Challenge NASA Hackathon.
Here's her story [in Italian, pdf]
