TechShopz In A Box™: Free, fun and engaging hands-on tech workshops for teenage girls from TechGirlz

With middle and high schools back in session, now is an excellent time for adult mentors – parents, teachers and other professionals – of teen girls to foster interest in tech-related careers. The TechShopz in a Box™ catalog from Creating IT Futures’ TechGirlz is ready to help.

Teenagers show a growing interest in working with technology as a career, according to research conducted by CompTIA, the leading trade association for the global information technology industry (IT). Despite this demonstrated interest, teens also express reservations and misconceptions about tech careers. And about 30 percent say their schools do not provide enough information or guidance about job opportunities working with technology.

That’s where TechGirlz, a nonprofit organization operated by Creating IT Futures, CompTIA’s tech workforce charity, can help. TechGirlz started with a singular vision: To change how middle-school girls think about technology by engaging them in free, fun, hands-on workshops on topics ranging from how to use Photoshop to building a webpage.

Within a year after TechGirlz opened its doors, workshops were booked solid, with waitlists reaching two and sometimes three times the number of available seats.

So, to reach more girls in more locations, TechGirlz open-sourced its workshop plans, documents and procedures, calling these free materials TechShopz in a Box™. The materials allow anyone, anywhere, to run a TechGirlz workshop.

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To date, more than 15,000 girls worldwide have participated in a TechGirlz workshop in some form, and the TechGirlz curricula have been deployed successfully nationwide, introducing teenage girls from middle school through high school years to rewarding career opportunities working with technology.

Check out these recent headlines showcasing TechGirlz’s success: