The purpose of this club is to allow members to participate in the annual international Technovation challenge, which unites and encourages women from all over the world to learn and apply technological skills by creating apps.
The challenge is split into three main phases over the entire year. During the recruitment period, which lasts from August through December, students learn the necessary technical skills needed in order to develop their app. The official season, which starts in January and ends in late April, is when members actually create their app. Lastly, the Technovation cycle wraps up with the Pitch period, which lasts from May until the end of July, where members compete in regional, international semifinals and international finals competitions. Those who qualify to move on from the regional competition go straight to the international semifinals. And only a select few advance to the globals, or finals, held every year in San Francisco. During the competition, contestants demonstrate the capabilities of their app to a panel of judges and follow up with a presentation of their business plans.
MV Technovation meets every Thursday in room A103 and has 30 members. Meetings are structured where officers provide lectures highlighting a specific skill. Members then break into small groups and attempt to replicate what they just learned. Once the groups have finished their tasks, the officers recommence the lecture.
The main goal of MV Technovation goes far beyond the confines of the Technovation challenge. They hope to help young women gain the confidence and skills needed to succeed as entrepreneurs in STEM fields, which are dominated by men.
“The importance of bringing women into stem fields is to introduce diversity into STEM fields,” president senior Carol Wang said. “Women can offer a variety of perspectives and skillsets.”
Simultaneously, the organization hopes to teach their members the necessary skills to create their app as well as allow members to apply skills they learned throughout their various classes. They teach members assorted skills such as competition analysis, coding skills, how to write business plans and product design.
Lastly, vice president senior Johanna Karras hopes to allow as many members as possible to compete in and complete the Technovation challenge.
“Every year, we have many members that start but do not complete the challenge,” Karras said. “Our goal this year is to minimize that. And with more people competing, we have a higher chance to create more winners.”
