Code Girls United seeking regional competition judges, sponsors

Press release

KALISPELL — Code Girls United, which provides girls grades four through eight experience in coding, technology and business, has invited people to be judges and sponsors to support the Northwest Regional Competition in April 2023. 

The virtual event allows teams of two to five girls in fourth through eighth-grade to demonstrate their technical skills, teamwork and business skills to qualified community leaders. The competition offers scholarship prizes of $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000.  

“Code Girls United puts the power of business and computing in the hands of these girls,” said Marianne Smith, founding member of Code Girls United. “The NW Regional Competition allows them to showcase these skills and see tangible results from their hard work.”

Founded in 2016, Code Girls United is a nonprofit organization providing free after-school programming for fourth to eighth-grade girls and tribal high school girls in Montana. Code Girls United’s mission is to teach young girls to identify and create real-world apps for cell phones, tablets, and computers. The program also includes basic business skill development such as team building, presentation creation and foundational STEM principles. The program serves more than 400 students and has offered 36 scholarships to date. 

  The competition will include teams of girls presenting working apps that they had conceived, developed, coded, and tested for their target consumers. Teams will present and demonstrate their project to the audience and judges. Select students will be awarded cash and scholarships for their hard work. Judges will also offer age-appropriate critiques on technical prowess, business knowledge, and presentation skills.

Sponsors of the NW Regional Competition can choose from four sponsorship packages that offer businesses the opportunity to create future talent, be mentioned at the event, posted in event materials, be featured in the newsletter and on Code Girls United’s website, and more. 

  People are asked to email Marianne Smith at [email protected] or call 406-407-0201 by March 15, 2023, and are to visit its website at http://www.codegirlsunited.org .