With bears, cougars and coyotes once again wandering around Burnaby neighbourhoods, wouldn’t it be handy to have a mobile app that alerts people to wildlife sightings in their area while simultaneously generating species-specific safety tips?
Look no further than the Wildlife Alert Reporting App (WARA) – created by a pair of entrepreneurial, animal-loving girls at Cameron Elementary School.
Twelve-year-old Isadora Vieytes and 11-year-old Carina Chen (a.k.a. the Tech Turtles) developed the prototype for Technovation, a global tech competition that challenges girls around the world to identify a problem, create a mobile app to solve it, code the app, make a business plan and pitch the whole thing to expert judges.
Using a Wildsafe B.C. data file of sightings reported to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service, WARA allows users to define a radius on Google maps and get notifications about wildlife sightings within that radius.
“When users receive WARA’s notifications, they can avoid the area as well as ensure that their food and garbage are safely stored away,” states the girls’ online description of the project. “This helps keep both animals and humans safe.”
The app impressed virtual judges from around the world and was picked to be one of Canada’s 10 Technovation semifinalists in the junior division.
After another round of online judging, finalists will be picked in mid-June and travel to San Francisco in August to compete against girls from around the globe.
The prototype has also impressed wildlife advocates closer to home.
“It’s a great thing that they came up with,” said provincial coordinator for Wildsafe B.C. Frank Ritcey, who collaborated with the girls on the project.
Wildsafe B.C.’s Wildlife Alert Reporting Program (WARP) already alerts users to wildlife sightings via email, but the Tech Turtles’ app has made that information mobile.
“What it does is it puts that directly onto your smartphone,” Ritcey said, “so if you’re walking into a neighbourhood and you get to within however many metres of where wildlife was reported, it will buzz the phone and tell you, ‘Hey, you’re coming into this area. This is what you should do to be safe around wildlife.’ The concept is really really sound. Eventually, it will be developed to the point where it’ll be something that will be available to everyone.”
The girls have worked on the project since November, with their efforts ramping up in the final few weeks.
“It was such a huge project that they were working sometimes four-and-a-half hours a day just here, and then they would go home and work more,” said Cameron teacher Micheline Kamber, who coaches the girls along with Cameron mom and tech entrepreneur Erika Castellanos.
For Chen and Vieytes, the effort was worth it.
“I was a bit stressed out at times, but then when we finished the app, I felt amazing,” Chen said.
Girls only
Technovation, which has been designed to narrow the gender gap in technology, is good for girls, according to Kamber.
Too often the focus of computer science activities in schools is geared towards role-playing video games, she said, something that doesn’t capture the imagination of a lot of girls.
Technovation, meanwhile, challenges them to learn and apply computer skills to solve real-world problems.
That has struck a chord with the Tech Turtles.
“Since I joined Technovation, I want to help the world more,” Chen said.
Vieytes is interested in following in her mother’s footsteps and possibly combining a career in computers and policing.
For Vieytes, Technovation’s girls-only setting also gives girls a chance to transcend the idea – still common among their male peers – that girls aren’t good at computers.
“I see stereotyping in my class all the time,” she said. “If a bunch of boys join Technovation, girls are going to run off.”
Girls’ participation in the school’s coed Kids Can Code program seem to bear her out, according to Kamber.
The Cameron teacher said the school left five of the program’s 10 spots open for girls but couldn’t fill them because not enough girls signed up.
Technovation, meanwhile, attracted six girls this year.
Cameron’s other Technovation team, the Tech Girls, who were featured in a NOW story last year, also made it into the semifinal round, with an app that promotes nutrition and wellness for kids.
“It’s sort of like the Pokémon GO idea,” Kamber said, but instead of catching Pokémon they’re catching healthy food.”
This year’s Tech Girls are Jasmine Shim, 11, Jessica Ye, 10, Barbara Castano, 11, and Liya Li, 10.
For Kamber, the extra-curricular hours she and Castellanos put into coaching the next generation of female techies are well worth it.
“Both of us are women in computer science and we want to encourage girls to follow these paths. These are great careers to have,” she said.
