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App Camp 2020: Help us expand to 3 new cities!

App camp empowers youth to develop careers in technology. Help us expand to 3 more cities by 2020!

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App Camp 2020: Help us expand to 3 new cities!

App Camp 2020: Help us expand to 3 new cities!

App Camp 2020: Help us expand to 3 new cities!

App Camp 2020: Help us expand to 3 new cities!

App Camp 2020: Help us expand to 3 new cities!

App camp empowers youth to develop careers in technology. Help us expand to 3 more cities by 2020!

App camp empowers youth to develop careers in technology. Help us expand to 3 more cities by 2020!

App camp empowers youth to develop careers in technology. Help us expand to 3 more cities by 2020!

App camp empowers youth to develop careers in technology. Help us expand to 3 more cities by 2020!

Jean MacDonald
Jean MacDonald
Jean MacDonald
Jean MacDonald
5 Campaigns |
Portland, United States
$76,084 USD 607 backers
101% of $75,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal
Highlights
Mountain Filled 5 Projects Mountain Filled 5 Projects
Overview
Since 2013, App Camp has been working on correcting the gender imbalance in technology professions by inspiring middle school-aged girls, transgender, and gender non-conforming youth with an introduction to the app development process. Now, we're looking to the future: by 2020, we want to establish camps in three new cities. In order to accomplish that goal, we need your help!

Donation Matching Starts Now!

I have some exciting news! On Wednesday, our friends at thoughtbot got in touch and said they'd like to make a matching donation to the Indiegogo campaign. This means thoughtbot will match up to $10,000 in donations so that more kids can come to App Camp in more cities!

Here's how you can help:

  • If you can donate, please do so using this link: https://tbot.io/appcamp. Using that link makes it easy for us to know when the $10,000 is hit.
  • Pass on the link! If you've been waiting to tell friends, family, and/or social media followers about the campaign, now is the perfect time to let them know.
  • Seriously, spread the word; we need your help to make our expansion efforts possible!

We've also updated a couple of our campaign perks. If you backed at the $50 level, you'll receive our exclusive pocket-sized Scout Books OR App: The Human Story Deluxe Download PLUS Wonder: The Mixtape, and our Hand-Crafted Wallpaper Pack.

If you backed at the $100 level, you'll receive the exclusive t-shirt PLUS the Scout Books, Wonder: The Mixtape, and our Hand-Crafted Wallpaper Pack.

That's all for now! We love your enthusiasm for App Camp and our mission. Let's make this happen!

New Perk: Dorothy Vaughan Portrait

We’re excited to introduce a new perk to our campaign: an art block featuring NASA’s Dorothy Vaughan.

Dorothy Vaughan was an amazing woman. An exceptional mathematician, she started working at NASA when it was still NACA in the 1940s. Mrs. Vaughan was hired as a human computer, back when electronic computers were a rarity, and worked in NACA’s West Computing Pool, which was their segregated computing division.

In the 1950s, when IBM computers came to NASA, she knew that she would have to figure out how to use the massive machines in order to stay relevant in a quickly changing field. Not only did she teach herself FORTRAN, one of the earliest programming languages, she mentored countless other women of color to make sure they could retain their jobs.

Dorthy’s example of learning, teaching, and mentorship is one we strive to live up to at App Camp. We couldn’t be more excited to offer this perk to you.

App Camp is expanding!

We want to start three more camps by 2020. Three new camps means we'll be able to bring camps to an additional 60 kids per year nationwide! 

In order to accomplish that goal, we need your help. Your contribution will help us buy the MacBook Pros, iPad Pros, Apple Pencils, and iPod touches necessary to running a camp like this. It will also support the growth and development of our volunteers and give us the ability to make the curriculum we teach even better.

12 kids smiling, holding up an App Camp poster

At App Camp, we have a vision of the future. It’s a future where curious kids are empowered to learn about technology and app development. It’s a future where everyone, regardless of gender, is encouraged to pursue careers in the technology industry if that’s what they want to do.

We’ve been working on fulfilling this vision since Jean MacDonald and Grey Osten founded App Camp in 2013. Because of your generosity, in four years we’ve had over 100 volunteers bring App Camp to 235 youth at 22 camps in 7 cities in the US and Canada. Even more impressive is that we've done this without any major corporate sponsors. To date, App Camp has been funded because of the generosity and enthusiasm of community members like you.

App Camp Matters

Studies show that gender-diverse technical teams outperform and outthink male-dominated teams. In a day and age when both hardware and software development are driving forces in the world, it behooves us to make sure our teams are as diverse as possible. It’s financially smart (gender-diverse tech companies return over 5% more than their non-diverse competition) and it allows companies to look at problems and solutions with a more innovative eye. Yet, over 70% of tech workers are male and many teams have no gender diversity whatsoever.

Part of the challenge is that over 80% of people graduating with computer science degrees are men. How do we get better gender representation in computer science programs? App Camp focuses on two of the solutions.First, the kids who attend camp will be going into the 8th and 9th grades in the fall, which is when studies show that girls tend to lose interest in tech. Second, our camp volunteers are women, transgender, and gender non-conforming. Studies show that one reason people don’t pursue careers in the industry is because they don’t see examples of people who look like them in their day-to-day lives or in popular media.

Classroom with App Camp developers working.

What We Do

In one short week, a group of kids learns about app design, development, and marketing, from concept to creation, all while having a great time in a physically healthy and emotionally supportive environment unlike any other, using the same tools used by professionals.

Five days isn’t a lot of time, so we dive right in on Monday! We start by helping them brainstorm so they can get a feel for where software developers get their ideas. By the middle of the first morning, we start teaching them the principles of Swift, a programming language used by iOS and Mac developers. We do this using iPad Pros, Apple Pencils, and a custom playground in Swift Playgrounds.

By the end of the first day, the kids have  already built two apps using MacBook Pros and Xcode, the tools professional iOS and Mac developers use. As is programming tradition, one of those apps is Hello World; the other is a basic calculator.

The rest of the week, they work in teams to create their own apps. They come up with the app they’ll create, make their own art (including the app icon), write their own text, decide where on the screen to place buttons, and use what they’ve learned about Swift to put together the code.

We reinforce healthy work habits, too. We have snacks and lunch away from computers and encourage breaks for stretching. We also have dedicated physical activity sessions—hula hooping and yoga are two favorites!

The new developers plan a presentation that they give in front of friends, family, and a panel of local tech professionals at the end of the week.

This intense and rewarding experience has the potential to shape futures and change lives. Many of our graduates have returned as interns the following year and all have emerged confident, enthusiastic, and knowledgable about an industry most of them had never considered entering.

The $75,000

Reaching our goal of $75,000 will allow us to bring camps to three more cities over the next three years. It will enable us to purchase new hardware (MacBook Pros, iPad Pros, Apple Pencils, and iPod touches), train our volunteer organizers and staff, continue to work on our custom curriculum, buy snacks and art supplies for our groups of new developers, and more.

Of the $75,000, we'll spend $25,000 on a set of new hardware for camps to share, $46,000 on growing and training our staff, and $4,000 on non-electronic supplies.

Meet Our Team

App Camp For Girls is the brainchild of founder Jean MacDonald, former partner at Smile, a well-known Mac and iOS software development firm. She worked there for nine years, developing marketing plans, managing public relations and nurturing the Smile customer community. Prior to Smile, she was sole proprietor of Well-Tempered Web, a website design and online marketing consultancy. 

Jean is an alumna of Big Nerd Ranch, where she took the Beginning iOS Bootcamp intensive course to prepare for App Camp For Girls. Jean has been an active participant and supporter of the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, which is the source of her inspiration for App Camp. 

Jean is a regular speaker at conferences, including CocoaConf, Release Notes, CocoaLove, Úll, and Pioneer Nation. She enjoys sharing her experiences in app marketing and geek activism.

Grey Osten

Grey Osten, App Camp's cofounder, is responsible for creating the curriculum and codebase used at camp. By day, they work at Smile as an iOS Developer. Prior to that, their journey as an iOS developer began in 2010 when close friend and founder of Fish Hook, Evan Delaney, took Grey under his wing. Grey's existing background in computer repair, customer service, and a bachelor's in fine art turned out to be the perfect foundation for learning to build iOS applications. As a self taught developer, they believe that teaching is just as important as doing.

Jill Kuehler

Jill Kuehler is thrilled to be serving as the Interim Executive Director for App Camp for Girls. 

Jill has traveled far from her roots in Dallas, Texas. After graduating from Texas A&M, she spent two years with the Peace Corps, teaching health education in rural schools in Guatemala. When she returned she packed up the car and Jake the dog and moved west. Jill has been in various leadership roles in the nonprofit sector for the past ten years. In 2014 Jill joined the Interim Executive Services team at the Nonprofit Association of Oregon. Over the past two years Jill has served as the Interim Executive Director of Rock n Roll Camp for Girls, Adelante Mujeres and Girls Inc. Previous to her interim work, Jill served as the Executive Director of Zenger Farm, an educational farm in outer southeast Portland. During Jill’s seven years at Zenger Farm, the organization grew from serving 3,000 to 11,000 youth and families each year and also completed a successful $2.3 million capital campaign to build the Urban Grange, a 6,600 square foot facility that includes a classroom and commercial kitchen to allow for programmatic growth. Outside of work Jill is bossed around by her rascally six year old daughter, Charly. 

...and many more! App Camp is run by crack teams of volunteers in each city. They do everything from finding space to hold camp sessions, buying supplies, recruiting even more volunteers, managing project teams, coaching on design considerations and presentations skills, and so much more. Without them, App Camp wouldn’t be possible.

FAQ

How can I help?

While we keep the cost of camp as low as we can, purchasing equipment and other supplies adds up. We also pay to rent space for camps, give our volunteers stipends for their time, and offer reduced tuition so that cost isn’t a barrier to kids who want to attend camp. Your dollars help make all of this possible.

We also need people to spread the word about this campaign! Share on social media, talk about us to your friends, family, and coworkers, send up smoke signals. You can even tell people about our companion project, Fireside Chats, which features a new Friend of App Camp every day during the Indiegogo campaign.

More people aware of App Camp means a wider network of people to organize and volunteer at future camps, donate money, and be a part of our virtual team of cheerleaders. It all does wonders for making App Camp a reality!

Where is App Camp currently?

App Camp HQ is in Portland, Oregon. In addition to having camp sessions there, we have teams in Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

What three cities will you expand to?

Because putting together a week of camp is so logistically complex, sometimes we can't make camps work even when we really want to. This is why we wait to announce new cities until we're ready to begin registration. By that point, we know we have everything in place to make that city's camp a rousing success!

Looking for more information? Check the project FAQ
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Choose your Perk

App Camp Themed Scout Books
featured

App Camp Themed Scout Books

$50 USD
These pocket-sized notebooks are perfect for jotting down app concepts, sketching your next big idea, taking notes, and more! We're not an average summer camp; these aren't average notebooks. Made by Scout Books, these covers feature the staples of App Camp: computers, tablets, snacks, & more! Also includes Wonder: A Mixtape, and a wallpaper pack.
Included Items
  • Wallpaper Pack
  • Wonder: A Mixtape
  • Scout Books Notebooks
Estimated Shipping
December 2017
37 out of 45 of claimed
Ships worldwide.
Hand-Crafted Wallpaper Pack

Hand-Crafted Wallpaper Pack

$10 USD
Have you ever spent hours looking for the ultimate iPhone wallpaper? Those day s are over, thanks to this pack of 10 images created by 2017 App Camp enrollees exclusively for our Indiegogo supporters.
Included Items
  • Wallpaper Pack
Estimated Shipping
November 2017
47 claimed
Wonder: A Mixtape

Wonder: A Mixtape

$25 USD
Portland's own dynamic duo The Doubleclicks joins us for a third time to curate another digital mixtape. This EP features wonder-filled songs including their own "Wonder", plus songs from Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Marian Call, The PDX Broadsides, and Juliana Finch.
Included Items
  • Wonder: A Mixtape
Estimated Shipping
November 2017
45 claimed
App: The Human Story Download

App: The Human Story Download

$50 USD
App: The Human Story is a documentary about what it means to be human in a world of technology and what it's like to be behind the app-development scenes. You'll get the Deluxe digital download of the film, which also includes the director's commentary.
Included Items
  • Wallpaper Pack
  • Wonder: A Mixtape
  • App: The Human Story
Estimated Shipping
November 2017
Only 2 left
Exclusive App Camp T-Shirt

Exclusive App Camp T-Shirt

$100 USD
Featuring a 2-inch tall iPod touch and our beloved owl logo on the left chest, this Indiegogo backer exclusive is bound to become one of your favorite shirts!
Included Items
  • App Camp T-Shirt
Estimated Shipping
December 2017
50 out of 100 of claimed
Ships worldwide.
Exclusive App Camp T-Shirt

Exclusive App Camp T-Shirt

$100 USD
Featuring a 2-inch tall iPod touch and our beloved owl logo on the left chest, this Indiegogo backer exclusive is bound to become one of your favorite shirts! Also includes our exclusive App Camp themed Scout Books, Wonder: A Mixtape, and a wallpaper pack.
Included Items
  • Wallpaper Pack
  • Wonder: A Mixtape
  • Scout Books Notebooks
  • App Camp T-Shirt
Estimated Shipping
December 2017
16 out of 100 of claimed
Ships worldwide.
Dorothy Vaughan Portrait Art

Dorothy Vaughan Portrait Art

$250 USD
Dorothy Vaughan was one of the mathematical engineers and FORTRAN programmers vital to the United States' early forays into aeronautics. Designed and crafted exclusively for App Camp supporters by artist Rosie Augustine, the finished giclée collage print on heavy watercolor paper is sealed onto a 6" x 6" salvaged cabinetry wood block.
Included Items
  • Dorothy Vaughan Portrait Art
Estimated Shipping
January 2018
3 out of 50 of claimed
Ships worldwide.
Sponsor One Developer

Sponsor One Developer

$400 USD
We strive to make App Camp accessible to anyone who wants to come; many of our attendees receive financial assistance. Your $400 contribution will help us turn one excited middle schooler into an iOS developer. You'll also receive our digital wallpaper pack and your choice of Wonder: A Mixtape, 3 Scout Book Notebooks, or our campaign T-shirt!
Included Items
  • Wallpaper Pack
  • Mixtape, Notebooks, or T-Shirt
20 claimed
Sponsor Three Developers

Sponsor Three Developers

$1,200 USD
Like helping one middle schooler attend camp, but three times as nice! We'll also add your name (or your company's) to the Community Supporters section of the App Camp website. You'll also receive our digital wallpaper pack and your choice of Wonder: A Mixtape, 3 Scout Book Notebooks, or our campaign T-shirt!
Included Items
  • Wallpaper Pack
  • Mixtape, Notebooks, or T-Shirt
Estimated Shipping
November 2017
3 claimed

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