Meet Alexa, Your New BFF, at Girl Tech Fest 2017!

Ever wanted to build your own robot sidekick?  Get ready to meet Alexa, Amazon‘s cloud-powered virtual assistant and your new BFF, at the Digital Muse Girl Tech Fest 2017!

Teen girls attending Girl Tech Fest 2017 will have a chance both to meet Alexa, and to program the Echo platform that helps Alexa run!  Those joining the GTF Alexa workshop organised by Amazon Web Services* will learn to customize Alexa’s voice-recognition system and remotely launch activities, from playing music to sending email.   After that, the chances to make a life-long virtual friend are endless!

The learning opportunity will continue after Girl Tech Fest, too, as the girls will benefit from official membership in the Amazon developer community where they can make use of the Alexa Skills Kit and other online materials to help them continue exploring and creating.

If you can’t join us at the Girl Tech Fest, why not celebrate International Girls in ICT Day along with us by trying out the Build a Trivia Skill tutorial with your own young developer?

Special thanks to  Amazon Web Services for supporting DLI work to increase participation of girls and women in digital fields, and for partnering for our second Girl Tech Fest!

Pepper is Coming to Girl Tech Fest 2017!

Pepper is an autonomous talking humanoid robot who is able to detect and respond to a whole number of human emotions including joy, sadness, anger or surprise. This high-tech robot is even able to make sense of data that traditional computers cannot understand like social media, video, images and text all through the power of IBM’s Watson!  Watson is “the first open cognitive computing technology platform and represents a new era in computing where systems understand the world in the way that humans do: through senses, learning, and experience.”

While still unavailable for individual purpose in Europe, Pepper is already popping up at local organizations, including  CHR Citadelle Hospital in Liege and AZ Damiaan Hospital in Ostend. Its duties include greeting patients and accompanying visitors to the correct hospital department utilizing the 20 different languages it knows!

But Pepper is not all work, it also has some pretty groovy dance moves too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqlyxg1-gE0

Pepper will visit GTF as a plenary speaker and participate in the Digital Muse Fun Lab throughout the day so each girl has the opportunity to say hello!

Still need to register for Girl Tech Fest? Do so here.

Special thanks to our partners at IBMCronos  and Craftworkz for making this possible!

Alma Radio at Girl Tech Fest 2017

Ever wonder what it would be like to produce your own radio show or conduct interviews as a radio journalist? Joining us at Girl Tech Fest 2017, radio show host Claire-Marie Healy of Radio Alma’s ‘Attention, Bébé a Bord!’ will introduce the girls to the exciting world of radio! Broadcasting from the Girl Tech Fest itself in a radio studio, the girls will conduct their very own interviews with the many women in STEM mentors, volunteers and participants throughout the day.

A graduate of the London School of Economics, Claire-Marie advises on regulatory affairs for the GSMA on policies related to the digital economy. After becoming a mother to her daughter Valentina, she became aware of the need for parenting support. This realization inspired her own personal journey to create ‘Attention, Bébé a Bord!’ during which she drops the frills and taboos in the discussion around parenthood to conduct personal interviews with young parents and specialists. Curious to know more? Listen in to Radio Alma on Tuesday between 11-12 or check out the radio website and Facebook page!

Want to join in on the learning experience? Come help promote girls in ESTEAM!

Girls aged 11-15 can register here: bit.ly/GTFBru17

Volunteers can sign up at: bit.ly/GTFBru17v