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Top Tips for Finding a Team (including a mentor)

• Form a team: Start with groups you're already part of (friends, classmates, clubs), share that you're looking for teammates on social media, and use the matching tool on Technovation!
• Find a Mentor: Start with who you know (coaches, teachers, parents), don’t give up if someone tells you no and ask if they know of someone else who can be a mentor, and get in touch with your local Chapter Ambassador!

Top Tips for Finding a Problem to Solve

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• Talk to members of your community and get a better idea of problems that impact them. Then, ask these members what they would like to see in a solution and to test your mobile app.
• Use the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals to find your problem! These goals are address crucial problems that affect many people around the world.
• Ask yourself key questions: What makes my solution suitable to a mobile app? What capabilities are unique to phones and how can I best use them?
• Think about things you like to do — can you find ways to improve them?
• Diagram and outline: Visually charting your thought process will help you both focus and expand on problems that matter to you!

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Top Tips:

1. Get creative – brainstorm! Write EVERY solution that comes into your head. There is no such thing as a bad idea! Then, categorize the solutions based on themes of the solution and select which solution is most feasible.
2. Reach out to community members, and even experts, at the start of your brainstorming to hear their thoughts about your ideas. The worst they can say is no to your request!
3. Can’t decide what language or platform to code in? Beginners - try MIT App Inventor (great option, has lots of extensions for connecting hardware, and great AI extensions, Android only) or Thunkable (great option, works on both Android AND iPhones)! Advanced coders with mentor support can challenge themselves with Java or Swift.Learn more.

Technovation Girls curriculum to start: Selecting Problems and Choose Your App Builder

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Top Tips:

1. Set your team up for success by creating a detailed action plan. Check our Trishala’s action plan template to start yours!
   • Tips:
     • 1) Create a detailed action plan with your team. Everyone should agree on tasks and deadlines they will be responsible for.
     • 2) Be specific on who from the team will be responsible for specific tasks and write in their name. Try to avoid putting “team” because that is too vague.
     • 3) Customize your action plan to fit your team’s goals.
2. Start creating your “paper” prototype! Explore programs such as Framer to help bring your team’s vision to fruition.
   • Tips:
     • Keep your designs as simple as possible!
     • Work with a consistent group of colors and fonts
     • Feel free to experiment and explore the UI platform
3. Coding is like fitting puzzle pieces together and takes a bit of patience to finish — just like a puzzle, approach coding problems one step at a time and you’ll eventually arrive at the final, complete picture.
4. Start by designing a mockup of your mobile app and know what features you intend to have. Then you can determine which of these features is core to your app and what to work on first.

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Top Tips:

1. Working on a climate problem? You can try to get in contact with a climate scientist/expert! Here is a strategy: Go to “Google Scholar”, enter the topic you would like to learn more about [i.e. polar ice caps, recycle, plastic, etc.], click and read an article, Google one of the authors and see if you can find their contact information, and reach out to them and ask if they have 10-15 minutes to talk! The worst that can happen is that they say no.
2. A successful app will change how people behave. Here are some strategies to change people’s behavior that you can build into your app:
   1. Information: Providing info about what the desired behavior is, why it’s important, and how to do it. Ex: Teaching people the importance of nature by showing them the impact of their actions on the environment. This could be done in a game format! 
   2. Rules & Regulations: Highlighting or sharing the rules in a creative way that gets people to follow the rules. Ex. Geofencing app that shows the environmental laws in certain areas. 
   3. Social influences: Helping the user feel pressure from other people App “Literably”, which has a competition board that ranks who picked up the most litter. 
   4. Emotional Appeals: Emotions drive behavior. Put the users in someone else’s shoes through simulation. Ex. Augmented Reality app “Wildverse”, which turns any place into a habitat for animals 

Are you using Thunkable to code your app? Check-out “draganddropcode.com” for pre-made code and awesome video tutorials to help you get started building your app to solve a problem!

💻 Girls Code It Coding Tutorial: Thunkable

💻 Girls Code It Coding Tutorial: Java or Swift

💻 Girls Code it Coding Tutorial: MIT App Inventor

Top Tips:

1. Setting milestones for your business that are achievable, clear and measurable will help future investors assess whether or not you have a realistic plan for your business. And as you develop your business plan, be sure to include any financial assumptions you are making around how much your business will cost, and what might impact those assumptions (e.g. market trends, an unexpected disaster, etc). 
2. Try to stay curious, flexible and comfortable with failing. It’s not the number of times that you fail, but the number of times that you recover from failures, and apply what you have learned, that builds future success.
3. Think of your budget as your business financial roadmap, showing both the current state of your business as well as your long-term goals. You may need to adjust it from time to time, to reflect cuts in spending or increases in revenue, as you aim to grow and scale your business in the future.

Top Tips:

Tips for filming: 

1. Good lighting
2. Steady camera
3. Minimal background noise
4. Speak slowly and clearly
5. Don’t forget to add English subtitles
6. Upload as unlisted or publicly viewable to YouTube or Vimeo

How to make your pitch memorable: 

Take a few minutes to prepare so you can deliver your points clearly:

• Take deep breaths before you start pitching
• Make sure you are supported when you stand or sit
• Remember to speak in full sentences

Highlight what makes your app unique

• Determine the “one thing” that the audience will remember about your app, make sure to highlight it

Mix personal stories with hard facts

• Don’t be shy to share personal experience and show the data or research that backs up your idea