Future Legends: closing the gender gap in tech
Future Legends has a mission: to close the gender gap in technology. The organisation, founded by Managaing Director, Cassandra Melvin, offers girls between 6–16 years old free workshops to explore programming, design, digital photography, data visualisation and leadership empowerment. The workshops are primarily taught in English, German and Arabic to cater to the primary languages spoken in Berlin.
Cassandra was kind enough to welcome me to the team to support workshops, design new curriculums and get to know the amazing, inspirational women behind this initiative.
Our mission is to empower young girls to become future leaders and innovators. Through free, hands-on and exploratory workshops and courses, we equip girls with 21st century skills and encourage them to become creators and designers with technology.
Cassandra Melvin, Founder & Managing Director of Future Legends
It’s been a pleasure to support the Data Visualisation and Designing A Mobile App workshops over the past few months. The effort and care put into the organisation and preparation of these workshops is outstanding.
When designing workshops for young people, design a relatable curriculum with clear structure and expectations. A fun and engaging experience will help the girls to enjoy the session, stay interested, inspire creativity and most importantly have fun! Here are some things that I’ve learnt from our educators and girls along the way.
- A warm up exercise encourages the girls to be more comfortable and confident before getting started
- Limiting new vocabulary to 5 key words or phrases helps the girls to learn the most important terms without being overwhelmed
- Making new vocabulary or processes relatable helps the girls to make sense of a new concept
- Clear communication and visual examples help to keep attention and interest
- The creative abilities of young people are astounding and inspirational!
We will be hosting a Mobile App Design workshop at Novoda’s Berlin office in November, so keep up to date with future events on the [Future Legends]( https://www.facebook.com/pg/futurelegendsberlin/events/?ref=page_internal page and invite your future legends to be leaders and innovators!
If you’re interested in getting involved yourself, feel free to get in touch below or get in touch through Facebook.
Originally published at https://blog.novoda.com on September 27, 2018.
