Caracas, May 7th, 2020.- After 18 weeks of hard work, twenty one teams in Technovation Girls Venezuela program were able to register on the Technovation platform, the mobile applications they designed to respond to problems in their communities. Now the girls continue to the next phase where they will be evaluated by the members of a virtual jury on a global scale.

There were many obstacles. As we moved into the final weeks of the program, the pandemic of Covid19 arrived, and forced us to reinvent ourselves and look for new ways to achieve the goal. Under the guidance of teachers and voluntary support from mentors, we managed to continue the program online using WhatsApp, calls to each team, and paying for mobile data in their cell phones so they could complete activities and upload them to the platform. Many of the girls live in vulnerable communities such as Catia, 23 de Enero, Ciudad Caribia, Petare, and La Vega where they do not have computers or internet access.

This would not have been possible without the support from our partners at United Nations Development Program UNDP, and Total Oil and Gas Venezuela, who for the third consecutive year decided to support this program that seeks to educate girls in technology and teach them to develop mobile Apps that bring solutions to problems in their communities. So they can become agents of change and entrepreneurs of the future.

Congratulations to our girls and to all team members that made this possible. Working with such courage, enthusiasm and determination, is a sign of the great impact we can create TOGETHER, even in the most adverse circumstances. Please continue to be an inspiration and an example of resilience to keep on building the country and the world we want.