Technovation

What happens when you give young girls the tools to solve real-world problems with tech? @TaraChk, CEO of @technovation, explains how/why Technovation is the world's largest tech accelerator for girls! They pair young women with industry mentors to build and launch their own tech startups. 🤯 When you help girls build their problem-solving muscle early on, they become amazing innovators who can change the world. 🦸‍♀️ 🎧 Join the conversation with host, @EricaLockheimer and co-host, Elizabeth Wendorf-Bloesser on @YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

🎙️ NEW EPISODE ALERT 🎙️ In this inspiring and thought-provoking episode of the HumanizeHer Podcast, hosts sit down with @TaraChk, CEO and Founder of @Technovation (formerly Iridescent). Tara shares her incredible personal trajectory, growing up in India surrounded by formidable female role models - her grandmother who built a school from scratch at age 65 and her mother who joined the Indian military as a doctor at age 43 - and learning hands-on mechanics from her father. Tara discusses dropping out of a PhD program after seeing her aerospace research used in military drones, pivoting her life to address the gap of women and underrepresented groups in STEM. She details how Technovation grew from a local cafe meetup with 45 girls into the world's largest global tech accelerator for young women, impacting over 450,000 participants across 120 countries. The conversation tackles critical modern challenges, including the seismic impact of AI, bridging the gap between education and the workforce, re-evaluating diversity and inclusion strategies to bring male allies and majority groups along, and the crucial importance of building a "safe sandbox" for new learners. Episode Highlights: 💥 Unconventional Beginnings: Raised in India where societal norms pushed girls toward home science, Tara was encouraged by her family to work with her hands, fix cars, and pursue physics and aerospace engineering in the U.S. 💥Birth of Technovation: Spurred by the realization that many young women in the U.S. lacked self-efficacy in math and technology, Tara founded Technovation to give underdogs the tools and mindset to become innovators. 💥Real-World Global Impact: From California teens building AI models to categorize invasive weeds to an Indian participant creating a road-monitoring app that led to a Google internship, Technovation builds problem-solving muscles in young girls to address community and world-changing issues. 💥Scaling Through Innovation: How Technovation transitioned from in-person workshops to online curriculum platforms (with partners like UNICEF and over 16,000 global volunteers), aiming to reach 25 million girls in the next decade. 💥Navigating AI Wave & DEI: Tara outlines why AI is a tidal wave to be ridden rather than feared, emphasizing the dangerous gap between rapid AI adoption in the workforce and bans in public school classrooms. She addresses how women risk being disproportionately affected by AI job displacements and advocates for project-based AI coding education for all youth. "Find the right problem to orient your life towards, and honestly, everything else falls into place. Don't just stop at using @claudeai or @ChatGPT - code with it. Don't be afraid; nothing will break. Find a simple problem that you have in your life and actually learn to code, because it just gives you a superpower." - Tara Chklovski Special Shoutouts in this Episode: Anar Simpson Sidney Hough Tara’s Grandmother & Mother ❣️ Listen in and join the conversation with host, @EricaLockheimer and co-host, Elizabeth Wendorf-Bloesser.