Bangalore, June 20, 2014: Microsoft today conducted its first ever DigiGirlz Day in Bangalore. The event, which was hosted at Microsoft India (R&D)’s Pvt Ltd, was attended by more than 50 girls in the age group of 13-15 years from five city schools, namely Harvest International, Baldwin Girls, Innisfree, Vidya Niketan and Mary Immaculate. Through a carefully chosen set of activities conducted during the day, the girls were exposed to various Microsoft technologies and also got the opportunity to interact with technology experts from Microsoft.
Pratima Amonkar, Director Audience Marketing, Developer Experience & Evangelism at Microsoft, welcoming the girls. Pratima was our keynote speaker
June 19, 2014
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Originally started as “Microsoft Day for Girls” at Iselin, NJ in the year 2000, DigiGirlz is now a global program which has been attended by more than 13,700 students worldwide. The goal of DigiGirlz is to encourage high school girls to be leaders in the technology industry by providing opportunities to learn about careers in technology, talk with Microsoft employees about their life experiences, and enjoy hands-on computer and technology workshops.
Today’s DigiGirlz Day was the third in India and the first in Bangalore, the first two being conducted at Hyderabad. Pratima Amonkar, Director Audience Marketing, Developer Experience & Evangelism at Microsoft, was the keynote speaker. “DigiGirlz is one of our signature programs to invest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education for young women. We aim to provide the girls with the expertise and direction needed to succeed in a world which is becoming more dependent on latest technologies and innovations. We ensure that the workshops and discussions are fun and engaging, and prompt them to start thinking about taking up technology careers,” Amonkar said.
“DigiGirlz aims at dismissing stereotypes of the high-tech industry catering solely to males. Throughout the world, female representation in technology-related careers is low, and India is no different. The software industry needs to invest in STEM education for women to be able to build a pipeline of future workers ready for the challenges of the global economy. Through initiatives like DigiGirlz, Microsoft hopes to significantly increase the number of young women in tech-focused careers and set an example for other companies to pursue avenues of inclusion in the workplace,” she added.
Today’s DigiGirlz Day included an interesting agenda, planned carefully to introduce the girls to various technologies and project career possibilities. A workshop on PowerPoint and Excel was conducted to showcase how technology can help increase productivity. Through an app development session, the girls were taught the basics of how to create applications on Microsoft platforms, using our tools. Another workshop introduced them to Kodu, a visual programming language used specially for creating games in a simple, direct, and intuitive manner.
