Kilkenny School Crowned Winner of AWS GetIT 2022 Competition – Irish Tech News – Irish Tech News
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced that St Brigid’s College Callan has been named as winner of AWS GetIT 2022 in Ireland, a competition designed to inspire young students, especially girls, aged between 12 and 13 to consider a career in technology by challenging longstanding gender stereotypes and inspiring them to become tomorrow’s tech innovators and leaders.
Teams from many schools across Ireland took part in the competition to design an app which solves a real issue faced by their school or community. AWS received entries covering a wide range of ideas, including concepts focused on sustainability, mental health, and personal safety. The final for the competition took place at AWS’s offices in Dublin on Wednesday, 17th May and was judged by a panel of business and technology industry experts.
The winning team at St Brigid’s College Callan, County Kilkenny came up with an app idea called ‘Bee Aware’. The app idea is a call to action for teenagers and encourages them to become involved in their homes, schools, and communities to create and maintain bee-friendly areas.
Runners-up Our Lady’s Grove Secondary School in Dublin came up with an app idea called ‘Climate Change Chats’, an app where people can make videos of themselves taking action against climate change, and inspire others in their local community to do the same.
Lorna Cody, Business & IT teacher from St Brigid’s College said: “St. Brigid’s College Callan participated in the AWS GetIT competition for the first time this year and were absolutely honoured to be chosen as the winning team. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the programme as it gave them an opportunity to ‘learn and be curious’ to move outside their comfort zone and delve into a world in which they had never experienced.
Every single girl in first year took part in the programme, they developed their IT, teamwork, interpersonal and presentation skills. These transferrable skills will benefit them in all aspects of their life going forward. They formed a wonderful relationship with their Ambassador Fiona, who visited the school, on several occasions. Fiona was inspiring and left every single girl in the room feeling, ‘this could be me!’ I have no doubt, that she has inspired some of our girls to consider a future career in technology.”
Mark Finlay, Head of Public Sector at AWS Ireland and one of the judges of the final said: “Programmes like AWS GetIT help to encourage secondary school students – and in particular girls – to study technology, by introducing them to cloud computing and digital skills, and making them aware of the many and varied career opportunities available in the industry today.
We were very impressed with the ideas we received and would like to extend our congratulations to everyone who participated in the programme this year, and in particular, the team at St Brigid’s College who won the top prize for their app to maintain the population of bees. We hope all the teams will be inspired to build on the skills they’ve learned with AWS GetIT, and feel confident that they can achieve anything.”
Carol Gibbons, Head of Technology in Enterprise Ireland (State Business Export Agency) and judge of the final said: “Judging was the impossible task – the quality of the presentation, depth of knowledge and passion for their projects was seriously impressive. It is always a privilege to be involved in a programme like AWS GetIT, and for the students, presenting back in the schools and their communities on their projects shows if you can see it you can be it. Well done to all involved.”
Lorna Martyn, Ireland Regional Chair and SVP, Technology, Fidelity Investments and judge of the final said: “Initiatives like GetIT reach students at a critical stage of development and amplifies awareness of careers in technology. Intervention in the early teens is a particularly important step in increasing gender diversity in the technology sector.
The applied approach used in GetIT provides opportunities for students to learn new skills and experience the power of mentorship. I was incredibly impressed by the finalists this year and how they demonstrated a passion for the problem area, creativity, understanding of how technology can enable positive societal outcomes, and the levels of research, critical thinking and teamwork.”
As part of AWS GetIT, students attend virtual digital skills boot camps where they learn about the different stages of design thinking for applications, including how to identify a target audience, problem solving, brainstorming and research techniques, prototyping, and test and development.
The GetIT programme introduces students to the variety of roles available in technology to give them a sense of the different types of career paths open to them, to help them imagine what working in technology might be like, and to help them learn about the positive impact that women are having in the industry. Throughout the school year the students are supported by AWS GetIT Ambassadors, who are women or non-binary professionals in technology, and role models who wants to inspire the next generation of technology leaders.
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