UK DIGI GIRLZ Camp- 200 attendees!!!! Way to go Microsoft UK

This is directly "from the desk" of Eileen Brown and her team who held the Digi Girlz Camp experience just 2 short months ago. I encourage you all to look to this for ideas for your own camp. I am amazed at the growing interest in this program. Please let Microsoft know you appreciate this endeavor by posting your comments here. Read on for another inspiring story:



On Friday 22nd June, 200 girls aged between 13 – 15 came to Microsoft campus in the UK for a day of fun and education ). I will be honest, the idea of organising a day for 200 school girls was slightly daunting but what a day! The girls were so much fun and really inspiring - it was refreshing to spend time with a group of young people who really embraced the opportunity to visit the Microsoft Campus, and I am under no illusions that we achieved our goal for the day. Our objectives were to:

Help to redress the gender imbalance in the IT industry by reaching out to 200 x girls between the age of 12 to 15 and encourage them to think differently about a career in IT. This includes IT services, marketing and sales.

We had Katie Ledger from the BBC as master of ceremonies, the systems magician from innocent drinks, demos from Windows Live, Popfly, robots, the first Lego league, XBOX 360, Zune and Movie Maker demonstrations. We offered and organised trips round the Microsoft Technology Centre where 80 girls were shown the latest in Technology. There was a workshop activity in the afternoon in conjunction with Computer Clubs 4 Girls (CC4G) using movie maker to create a 2 minute promotional video for the XBOX 360 or the Creative Zen, and a shoutathon to decide the winners (who won Digital cameras or Creative Zen V+ players)

This event was an experiment in the UK and I realise that we faced a certain amount of ambiguity regarding the organisation and planning, however, it was an overwhelming success and that is thanks to the enthusiasm and commitment of 70 volunteers who had given up their day – a number of very excited girls commented on how much they enjoyed the day and they were blown away by the prizes.

Courtesy of and written by:

Eileen Brown l Manager, IT Pro Evangelist team l Developer & Platform Group l Microsoft UK.