Boy wins ‘girls in tech’ competition

A technology competition open to both genders but specially geared towards attracting young girls, is being criticized for selecting a 13-year-old boy as a winner. 

EDF Energy, an England-based energy competition, created a competition that asked children to come up with ideas for a connected home bedroom product. The marketing behind the competition was specially geared towards attracting young girls in hopes of generating interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. 

EDF says that while this was the primary goal for its “Pretty Curious” competition, following three on-site, girls-only events across the UK, it decided to open the completion up to both genders in the interest of fairness, and accept submissions online as well. 

The winner came up with an idea for a game controller which harnesses kinetic energy from thumb action using wind-up triggers. 

Of the runner-ups, three of the four finishers were female. Ideas included smart curtains, smart refrigerators, and a sleep monitor. 

Following the announcement, EDF tweeted that while “the aim of #PrettyCurious was to encourage girls into #STEM, the #PrettyCuriousChallenge was a gender-neutral competition”.

It added: “The winner was shortlisted by a panel of judges including the all-female winning team from our #PrettyCurious Glasgow workshop.”

“We were really impressed with the ideas which were submitted,” said Amy Edmundson, an electrical maintenance technician at EDF. “It's exciting to see so many young people getting involved in this type of initiative and engaging with STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). We hope more young people will be inspired to pursue STEM subjects at school and consider STEM careers in future.” 

“Congratulations to the winner – however I’d love to hear from EDF how the winning solution meets their said goal for the competition,” said computer scientist Dr. Sue Black, OBE. “It is taking me a bit of time to see how this result will change women’s perceptions of STEM.”

Learn more about the contest at EDF Energy