App Stories is a project of App Camp for Girls, a non-profit organization that seeks to address the gender imbalance among software developers by giving girls the chance to learn how to build apps, to be inspired by women instructors, and to get exposure to software development as a career.
We are raising $50,000 to fund the 2013 summer camp sessions and the first 12 months of building out our organization. On this blog, we are featuring interviews with developers who have inspired us and whose stories can encourage the next generation.
App Stories is curated by Kirschen Seah, aka The Free Range Coder, with help from the App Camp For Girls organizers, Kelly Guimont, Natalie Osten, and Jean MacDonald.
We are launching this summer in Portland, Oregon. Our goal is to finetune our educational program. during a “beta” session in June and a regular session in August. With experience and an established curriculum, we’ll start expanding the camp. Our goal is to build a nationwide organization with camps in other cities–and even other countries!
The schedule at App Camp For Girls is equal parts geeky and fun. It’s summer camp, after all! Girls are divided in to project teams, and the teams are led by a woman iOS developer with help from other women who are designers, testers, support specialists, and others.
The weeklong session covers the process from brainstorming an app idea to marketing the finished app. Girls will learn how to sketch out and storyboard their app ideas. The project team leaders will take the refined app storyboards and show the girls how apps are built in Xcode. The girls will have an opportunity for some hands-on time with Xcode Storyboards and will learn how to customize the content of their app.
In addition to developing their apps, the girls get to design icons and write App Store descriptions, while figuring out who their target market is. On the last day of camp, the teams will pitch their apps to a panel of women angel investors, giving them a chance to receive valuable feedback and learn more about the business side of app development.
App Stories 