I had the unique opportunity to attend Technovation’s World Pitch Week in San Jose, California the week of August 6th. World Pitch Week revolves around the top 12 teams in the world – 6 junior division and 6 senior division – pitching for the top scholarships awarded by Technovation. However there’s a lot more to WPW than the pitch and awards.
Regional ambassadors spend all day Tuesday in a training session (see my post here), while teams, mentors and student ambassadors go on field trips to local companies like Tesla and enjoy other activities. Wednesday took us to the NASA Science Center and Google, before prepping for the actual pitch night. Thursday was a field trip to San Francisco, and the week rounded up that night with the Celebration Event at which the Gold and Silver Scholarships were announced for each division.
For me, the best thing about attending World Pitch week is the energy. It’s excitement, it’s anticipation, it’s dedication… it’s all positive. Genuinely positive. AMAZINGLY POSITIVE. How does it happen that you spend an inordinate amount of time with a diverse, unique, international group of people and you absolutely LOVE IT????
Because of the passion.
Every RA and every mentor is passionate about the girls of their region being successful. But they are just as passionate about girls from any other region being just as successful. And this generous passion creates an amazing environment of positive energy when we all get to be together, share our stories, and learn from each other.
As Tara Chklovski, CEO and Founder of Iridescent, said to the RAs during our day of training, “Technovation is less about the app or the competition, the focus is on building the girl.”
We are all building girls, building the future, and we all win if everyone does well. And everyone in this program does do well – they all succeed however much they accomplish.
Click here to see my tweets during World Pitch week.
Check out Technovation’s coverage by clicking here.
