MAY 19, 2021 ————— GOVERNMENT OF BARBADOS
After months of challenging over 700 girls around the region to develop tech solutions to pressing regional issues, the Caribbean Girls Hack TechnoCreativity Hackathon 2021 came to a nail biting close with its final Caribbean Girls Virtual 3D Hackathon finals on Saturday, May 8.
One hundred and fifty girls, representing 36 teams from 10 Caribbean countries, participated in the finals, pitching their techno creative solutions under three themes: Climate Change, Save Our Oceans and Gender-Based Violence (GBV), using the modalities of Animation, Short Film, Music Video, Photo Story Board, and Vlog to bring their creative concepts to life.
The Bajan Digital Dream team copped the third-place spot, with team members Destiny Howell, Kayla Aboab, Jenna Ifill and Ashanté Bowens. The girls pitched their Animation solution providing practical solutions for the pressing issue of Climate Change and sustainability.
These #girlsintech are no strangers to the winners’ row, as they won the Barbados Caribbean Girls Hackathon in 2019 representing Deighton Griffith Secondary school.
The team indicated that their biggest strength was learning and adapting quickly as a unit, and their twice-weekly virtual meetings kept them on track.
They also shared that one of the most significant advantages to the online learning environment was that they were exposed to world-class, global trainers and technical resources, who opened up their creative imagination in unimaginable ways.
The teams from Suriname, the Girl Code and Fusion Girls, copped both the first and second place spots, with their Animation stories on Climate Change and Save Our Oceans, respectively. Digital Dream Team tied with Ocean Girls for third place, with their Animated Storyboard on Save Our Oceans.
Fourth place went to Sangre Grande Development Trinidad and Tobago for their Music Video on Save Our Oceans. The People’s choice award, based on participant voting during the 3D event, went to Free Tech from Trinidad and Tobago for their Animation on Save Our Oceans.
All team members in the top five teams received state of the art laptops from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI). In addition, the first-place winners received LTE enabled tablets from Regional Telecommunications partner FLOW and sister company BTC, and National Commercial Bank (Jamaica) Foundation awarded the team a grant of US$1,000.00. The second-place winners also received LG smart phones from Digicel & LOOP and UN Women will award a paid summer internship to two lucky members of the top five winning teams.
The Caribbean Girls Hackathon is an annual programme, run by SheLeadsIT co-founders Bridget Lewis and Nicole Pitter-Patterson, in collaboration with Technology Partner, Raj Ramdass, co-founder of Restore a Sense of I Can (RSC) Tech Clubs, and is a part of the annual International Girls in ICT Day celebration.
The event is supported by an impressive line-up of Caribbean and International supporters; Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, Inter-American Development Bank, FLOW & BTC, UN Women, Digicel & LOOP, National Commercial Bank Jamaica Ltd., and Fujitsu to name a few.
