Encouraging girls to fall in love with coding is one of our core missions at Robo Wunderkind! We have that in common with the Mädchenzentrum. 

The Mädchenzentrum is an organization that aims to empower girls and young women to explore their talents and potentials. To achieve this, they organize workshops and offer classes in cooperation with organizations, companies, and initiatives that also offer girls a way to explore their abilities and find out what they’re good at. We were honored to be considered as one of such companies by the Mädchenzentrum! 

Andrea Grafenauer, who leads workshops that introduce girls to technical competence skills, organizes the ‘Mobile Girls’ Day Workshop’. This is an event for elementary school girls aged 8-12, where Robo Wunderkind lead the way. Through Robo Wunderkind, the girls can get their first taste of coding and find out whether coding and robotics might be something they’d be interested in. Robo receives a lot of praise! 

“Robo Wunderkind offers the girls a first taste of the world of programming. The girls really enjoy seeing Robo carrying out commands. It’s ideal for their age group and truly easy to learn to work with,” says Grafenauer about Robo Wunderkind. 

At the event, girls explore Robo Wunderkind’s functions and make their first encounter with what Robo can turn into, using the Robo Wunderkind App to try out different ways of controlling it. Their builds are impressive and it is always wonderful to see what they are able to achieve with just a few simple commands, after having just met Robo. They especially enjoy seeing Robo move around!  

Robo Wunderkind is a gender-neutral toy that has always made it clear that what it teaches––the basics of coding and robotics––is a priceless skill for both girls and boys, and that both genders should participate in play equally. But girls are still underrepresented in STEM and computing disciplines. For instance, women only make up 18% of computing field graduates––even though, at a young age, they outperform boys at ICT (information and communication technology) skills! 

Our CEO Anna Iarotska recently published an article about why we should teach girls how to code. The reasons are simple: the rate of automatization and computerization of our society leads to more and more open computing jobs, which we need to fill. Coding is one of the most sought-after skills of the 21st century and will be an essential requirement on the job market of tomorrow. Girls like coding and programming when they are small, but somewhere between grade school and high school, this excitement trails off––maybe because they are encouraged to pursue more ‘female’ fields. We believe it is essential to support girls in exploring their talents in this sphere throughout their years in school, and to make sure their excitement for the discipline prevails. 

Organizations like the Mädchenzentrum are the key to this goal, which is why we’re natural allies! It’s becoming clear that girls are an untapped gold mine when it comes to the STEM labor market. We are proud to be a part of the change that aims to close the gender tech gap. Girls have amazing potential and we’re excited to see them exploring their talents!