Chicago Girl Scouts Learn to Make Apps and Digital Badges

Programming boot camps are part of an effort to interest girls in science and technology. Programming boot camps are part of an effort to interest girls in science and technology.

June 24, 2012 | Read Time: 1 minute

Girl Scout badges are going digital.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded $150,000 for “My Girl Scout Sash Is an App,” a program to teach scouts in the Chicago metropolitan area how to build Android mobile applications.

Girls Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana is working on the project with the Motorola Mobility Foundation and MentorMob, an online service that aggregates educational content. Motorola volunteers will lead programming boot camps for scouts.

The program, which is part of an effort to encourage girls to consider careers in science and technology, will also allow scouts to create digital badges.

For more information: Go to dmlcompetition.net.

About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.