24 for Camp Techette

24 for Camp Techette

Twenty four Palmerston North Girls’ High School students are about to be encouraged to boost the number of techettes in New Zealand.

The year 12 and 13 computing students will take part in Camp Techette run by UCOL’s School of Business and Computing tomorrow (Tuesday 23 September).

What’s a techette? It’s an industry term for a female techie – and Head of School Catherine Snell-Siddle and Associate Head of School Sarah Snell say there aren’t enough of them. “The aim of Camp Techette is to encourage more young women to go into the information computer technology industry. It is still not first choice for many girls, even those, like the PNGHS students, who are studying computing at school.

“We want to change that by showing the students the opportunities available to them – and by highlighting the special skills women bring to ICT – communication, collaboration and problem solving, for example,” they say.

Sarah and Catherine say the Camp Techette day is designed specifically to showcase the ICT industry as a career option for females. “Role models from the industry will be there to talk about their career and roles within the industry and the students will get hands-on experience in a specialised computer hardware laboratory,” they say.

Techette role models will be Kelly Corfield, Senior Business Analyst with Land Transport, and Aneta Davidson, Senior Systems Engineer with Palmerston North based Gen-I.

It’s the second Camp Techette run by UCOL’s School of Business and Computing. Sarah says last year’s session had an impact on the students’ study and career plans. “We sent out questionnaires through their teachers: The feedback we received indicated that a significant number subsequently decided to consider the ICT industry as a career option.”

Questionnaires will again be sent out this year to gather feedback on the students’ experience on the day and will be followed up in the future to track their career choices.

Camp Techette is based on a Chicago model created by network equipment and management company Cisco.

ENDS

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