Technovation

Judge
Training
 What is in this training?

What is Your Judge

What does a Account
Technovation
judge do? Online & in-person
Girls? judging

Giving Feedback Judge Resources

After going through this training the first time, use this slide to easily jump around sections, turning this training into a resource!
What is
Technovation
girls?
Technovation Girls equips young women
ages 8-18 with the skills to become tech
entrepreneurs and leaders. With support
from volunteer mentors, girls work in teams
to code mobile apps and build AI solutions
that address real-world challenges that
impact them.
Judges provide scores and feedback on
their projects.
The UN
SDGs

Girls build their

projects around the
United Nations
Sustainable
Development Goals.
Judging rounds
Quarterfinals (QF): The first round of judging takes place from April 27 - May 23. Top
scoring teams will advance to the next round. You will judge in this round.

Semifinals (SF): In this second round, judging will be entirely online and takes place from
June 9 - June 23rd. Judges use the same rubrics to score the SF teams in order to help to choose
our finalists. You will be invited to judge in this round if you scored 5 or more in quarterfinals.

World Summit: 15 finalist teams (5 beginner, 5 junior, and 5 senior) chosen from the top
scorers of the Semifinals will be invited to participate in Technovation’s World Summit. A panel of
judges will be selected for each division.
Key dates
● Judge Registration opens - March 24th, 2023

● Submission deadline - April 18th, 5 pm Pacific Time

● Judging
○ Round 1 (Quarterfinals - in person and online): April 27 -

May 23rd
○ Round 2 (Semifinals): May 31 - June 14th

● Live Finalists and Regional Winner Announcement - June 30

Award structure

Judges will select 15 finalist teams from around the world, 5 from
each division!

Each team member will receive an educational stipend

There are no specific spots reserved for teams from particular

countries or regions.

You can read about the special award categories here.

What does a
judge do?
It♠ more than the score!

Receiving scores and feedback from professionals is a

critical pillar of learning for Technovation participants.

Technovation Girls judges support and motivate 20,000

girls from 50+ countries. Over 1,500 judges from around
the world gave each submission a score and
personalized feedback!
As a Technovation judge…
What are you judging?
You will score projects from all 3 age groups!

Beginner Junior Senior

submissions submissions submissions

Girls are ages 8-12 on Girls are ages 13-15 on Girls are ages 16-18 on
beginner teams jr teams sr teams

You will use a 3 point You will use a 5 point You will use a 5 point
scoring scale scoring scale scoring scale

View the beginner View the junior rubric View the senior rubric
rubric here here here
Scoring reference
point

Low Score Moderate Score High Score

Beginner Division 13-20 26-30 31-39

Junior Division 16-32 48-68 69-80

Senior Division 18-36 54-72 73-90

Beginner Division
❏ Project Name & 100 Word Description
❏ Pitch Video
❏ Technical Video
❏ Learning Journey: 2-6 images and
200 words
❏ Team Photo (optional) and Summary
❏ Source Code (for mobile app projects) or
AI Training Data (for AI projects)
Junior Division
❏ Project Name & 100 Word Description
❏ Pitch Video
❏ Technical Video
❏ User Adoption Plan
❏ Learning Journey: 2-6 images and
200 words
❏ Team Photo (optional) and Summary
❏ Source Code (for mobile app projects) or
AI Training Data (for AI projects)
Senior Division
❏ Project Name & 100 Word Description
❏ Pitch Video
❏ Technical Video
❏ Business Plan
❏ Learning Journey: 2-6 images and
200 words
❏ Team Photo (optional) and Summary
❏ Source Code (for mobile app projects) or
AI Training Data (for AI projects)
Example submission
Click through each project element to see an example submission
Use the junior rubric to practice giving a score and feedback

Score Overview

Project description EpiCare

Pitch video
JUNIOR DIVISION
Technical video Mobile App
Learning Journey
(minus the images)

User Adoption Plan

You are reviewing a Junior Division Mobile App submission.
Feedback from past
judges
Below is some real feedback given by judges to the EpiCare team. These
are examples of the feedback we are hoping you will give.
Feedback for the Project Description: I like very much your short
description of the project. It depicts perfectly what you're willing
to achieve with your app and clearly states objectives, your
mission and the techniques you used to make your application
possible.
Feedback for the Learning Journey: This is a very strong section
of the submission! I love how clearly you've laid out your
wireframe, it really showed your design process. Thank you for
including so many screenshots and design images. Your
resourcefulness in troubleshooting how to iterate/improve your
app by turning to the Thunkable community and YouTube are
very relatable in a real-would environment. A very impressive
submission for this division.
Feedback for the Pitch Video: The presentation was extremely
well put together and clear. The issues being affected were
clearly discussed such as the statistics on epilepsy. To improve
there could have been more talk on what was changed
depending on the findings
Feedback for the Technical video: This demonstrates the team
has coded an app that works and has all the user features
described in their pitch video which is excellent. The team could
describe what features they intend to add to the app in the
future to improve even more.
Feedback for the User Adoption Plan: The improvements based
on feedback of the UI being too bright shows that your open and
willing to listen to constructive to feedback and to adapt. The
marketing and distribution section seems reasonable and
realistic
Where will i be judging?

● This season, you can judge in-person or online

○ In-person
■ Will take place at local Regional Pitch Events or RPEs,
where teams will pitch live
■ RPEs are hosted by local chapters
○ Online
■ Any students not able to attend or outside the region
of an RPE will have their submission judged online
Judge Certificates

To recognize our judges for their dedication and support we

will award judge certificates to our active judges at the close
of the season. You must be at least a certified judge to
receive a certificate.

~ Certified judge (5 scores)

~ Head judge (5-10 scores)

~ Judge advisor (10+ scores)

Your judge
account
Online and in-person judging
Your judge account
Online judging

● Teams participating online or outside the

area of a local Regional Pitch Event (RPE) will
be judged online, grouped by division
 If you are only
If you are judging
judging online,
in-person, click
click here to
here to access
bypass training
that portion of the
for in-person
training
judging
Regional pitch events
● first-round judging events hosted by Chapter Ambassadors
● available in locations where there are 8 or more teams in a division
● Regional Pitch Events are official, competitive events, where teams
live pitch to a panel of judges and the top-scoring teams are
guaranteed to advance to the semifinals
● Judges participating in these events will be invited by the Chapter
Ambassador

For more details, reach out to your local Chapter Ambassador or Event
Lead.
celebration events
● Judges may be invited to attend celebration events
● Unofficial events that can be organized to celebrate
the achievements of local teams
● Scores and feedback will not be taken into
consideration for the global competition
Giving
feedback
Your score and feedback are part of a team’s
learning experience

Your scores and comments are shared as-is

with young girls to inspire them to keep
learning and developing their ideas.

All scores and feedback you give should be

framed to help girls continue learning.
Feedback on all 3 divisions

Remember as you give feedback to check what division the team is!
● The platform randomly assigns judges submissions
○ The feedback you give to an 8 year old in Beginner Division should
sound different than the feedback you give to an 18 year old in Senior
Division
● It is important to treat them separately and not compare them
● A beginner project will not have a business plan, and a junior
team’s user adoption plan is not meant to be as comprehensive as
a business plan for example
Providing Actionable Feedback
Providing actionable
feedback
● Use accessible language
● Focus on the student’s work
● Provide balanced feedback
● Identify 2-3 action points for the student to work on
Being culturally responsive
Provide feedback that is culturally responsive by:

● Acknowledging and addressing your bias before scoring

● Being open to a requirement being executed in various ways
● Focusing on the team’s effort and their understanding of the community issue
they are solving
○ Encourage students to continue learning about the history and current
aspects of their communities and think about how it can be incorporated into
technology
● Not penalizing students for their language or grammar errors
● Providing individualized feedback to help them continue their learning journey
Acknowledging bias
Before you start scoring, take a moment to address any unconscious
biases you may have, and put them aside. Some common ones include:
● girls come from different cultures and have different speaking styles
and norms
○ English is not the first language for many of our participants
○ You are not expected to be an expert on different communities and their cultures

● participants access to materials vary

○ Students will have different levels of awareness and access to resources
○ Submissions should not be penalized for their level of technology resource access.

● this program is technology for beginners!

○ Some participants probably know nothing about coding or AI prior to this program -
it’s okay that they aren’t experts and that their ideas are not ready to go to market.
giving COnstructive feedback
for common submission issues
Instead of
Feedback item You can say...
saying...

Great start filming your video! I liked [this part]. As you continue
Sound not “I can’t hear your developing your pitch, you can look into ways to improve the sound on
working on video video.” your video. Try to film in locations with less noise or maybe test out some
video editing tools to help us hear your ideas more clearly!

As you keep building your app, develop your screens and functionality to
“I don’t make it clear how each screen is being used. Here are a few ideas - you
Unclear how app
understand your can consider how different screens might work, or which datasets exist
functions app.” that might be helpful or even hardware on the user’s phone the app
may use.

Team needs to A next step in your app might be thinking about your competitors and if
consider if a “We don’t need this technology is solving the problem you are trying to address. Have
mobile app is the an app for this.” you talked with people that might use it? This will help you continue to
right solution. adapt and grow your idea!
Score monitoring

● Each submission is reviewed by at least 3 judges

● Technovation monitors all judge feedback and scores to ensure:
○ equitable judging
○ that feedback is constructive and appropriate for the division
○ the quality of scores and feedback
● Technovation looks for certain behaviours (listed on the next
slide) to determine if the judge should review/edit the score
and then reaches out to the judge via email
Score monitoring
The following behaviours may result in a score monitor reaching out to
the judge via email:
● Assigning low or high scores to teams without evidence from
the rubric
○ all judging decisions must be made based on the rubric guidelines

● Scoring submissions very quickly

○ we ask you to take time to consider the team’s learning journey

● Failing to leave helpful feedback on each submission

○ our participants use your feedback to continue learning
Score monitoring
The following behaviours may result in a score monitor reaching out to
the judge via email:
● Using harsh and negative tone when providing feedback
○ many participants are early in their learning journey,
encouragement
● Not leaving comments, leaving repeating comments across
submissions, inappropriate/nonsensical language in comments
● Incomplete scores
● Any other malicious act that results in unfair feedback or scores
Things to avoid in
your feedback
● Avoid harsh or negative language and tone
○ Remember that you are only providing written feedback, online, so
context and tone are more challenging to understand
● Avoid only pointing out what students have done wrong
○ It’s okay to mention areas that are unclear or inconsistent, just ensure
you tell students why it seems unclear and how they can make it
clearer.
Judge
resources
Resources
Judge rubric - Use this to assess scores.
Judge resource page - Visit this page to see our FAQS, learn
about the certificates and addressing bias.
Support@technovation.org - If you have questions or issues
please direct them here for a quick response.
Slack channel - Accessible from your dashboard, this community
slack channel is a place to share stories and connect with fellow
judges.
Newsletters - Once you are registered as a judge, you will receive
weekly updates about judging from the Technovation Team!
Thank you for volunteering
with Technovation!
Click the button “I Accept” at the bottom of this webpage to
complete the training and start scoring!

“I am totally blown away by the creativity of the projects

and the awareness of community needs that were
demonstrated by these marvelous young girls. I strongly
recommend this opportunity to anyone who is interested
in social justice, community growth, and of course,
educating the next generation. It doesn't take long to be
a judge and you can do it at your own speed.”
Want to take your support a
step further?
Donate to help us reach more girls!
Your donation will help support the
teams that you are providing
feedback to, and help more girls
overcome educational hurdles! $270
supports 1 girl to go through the full
12-week program. Donate today!
Employee Matching
See if your company has an employee
donation or volunteer-hour matching
policy, such as through Benevity or
360MatchPro, and reach out to our
team at fundraising@technovation.org
to include Technovation in your
matching program!
Know someone
who would make
a great judge?
We are always looking for more judges to join
our community. More judges means more
feedback for our teams!

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