Avye's story

My Biography

Avye Couloute, a Year 9 student, and has emerged as a visible young female role model. She is a 13-year-old multi award winning tech maker, social entrepreneur, female tech advocate, workshop leader, and the founder of Girls Into Coding.

She started coding & attending physical computing workshops at 7. These workshops introduced her to Scratch (a block-based visual programming language), the Microbit (a pocket-sized micro-controller) and the Raspberry Pi computer. She loved how she could use code to move things on the screen or to control electronic components.

The workshops were fun, so she began going to lots of similar events and continued to explore what she was learning at home. To share her skills, she started co-running coding workshops alongside two adult mentors & soon took on the responsibility for preparing & leading her own for CoderDojo at Kingston University and other community events.

She is very active in the tech & maker community, dedicating a lot of her spare time to exploring & learning about coding & technology. She leads regular coding & robotics workshops, both in-person and virtually. She has won competitions with the robots which she designs and makes. Nonetheless, she still finds time to enjoy swimming, and playing football.

Three years ago, after repeatedly observing that most attendees at her workshops were boys, she founded ‘Girls Into Coding’ to get more girls into tech. Girls Into Coding offers girls aged 10-14 an opportunity to explore Coding, physical computing, robotics & 3D printing. The events are free to attend and with the help of her Mum, she also reaches out to women & girls doing cool things in the world of STEM, inviting them to give lightning talks.

She is enthusiastic about sharing her skills & experiences with others and is an Arm ambassador, part of the GenArm2Z program which enables young people to talk to tech leaders about how technology is being used & shaped for the future. As well as being keen to share opportunities, Avye has also successfully fundraised to provide books, physical computing kits, and microcontrollers to girls so they can continue their tech journeys at home and beyond.

During the Covid 19 pandemic, Avye launched a virtual version of Girls Into Coding and she is now successfully delivering robotics workshops online to girls, using kits that she has designed & manufactured. The kits along with other hardware are posted out to the girls, ensuring that they have everything they need at home to participate in the online events. So far, thirty Girls Into Coding events, both face to face & virtual, have been accessed by girls throughout the UK and from around the world, including USA, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, France, India, Poland, Nigeria, Singapore, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Suriname & South Africa.

In addition to her dedication to the Girls Into coding mission, Avye has also delivered workshops, demonstrated her projects and engaged with the public at the following tech events:-

• Stemettes Future Summit July 2019
• Bett Show January 2019
• Red Hat CO.LAB January 2019
•  Maker Faire Rome 3 Day Event Oct 2018
•  World Summit AI – Day of the Girl Future Leaders presented at the Amsterdam AI Summit on Oct 11th 2018
• Mozilla Festival 2019
• Young Coders Conference 2018

These endeavors have helped her to inspire more girls to give these types of activities a go. Through Girls Into Coding, she now aims to engage at least 1000 girls each year with opportunities to explore coding, robotics, physical computing & 3D design & printing. In the future, she wants to see girls and women engaged in STEM activities, education & careers – equally comfortable, with an equal sense of belonging and in equal numbers. 

In 2019 Avye received The Diana Legacy Award for creating opportunities for girls to engage with tech and for contributing towards bridging the gender gap in STEM education & careers – her past and current work/contributions have also been recognised through the following awards: –

• Tech4Good People Award
• TechWomen100 Awards
• Women In Tech Aspiring Teen Award
• FDM EveryWoman in Technology Awards – The One to Watch
• 30 women in robotics you need to know about
• Princess Diana Legacy Award
• Princess Diana Award
• Inspiring Juniors UK

Having a passion for making & exploring technology has enabled Avye to enter and win competitions with some of her ideas, projects and creations. In 2018 she won 1st place in the best working device category of the Microbit 1st Birthday Challenge with her balloon waving robot. This early achievement gave her the confidence to enter and win the Coolest Project UK in 2019 with her voice command robot.

Avye was invited as part of a panel of young ambassadors, to join the CEO of ARM on stage to deliver a keynote at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. On top of this Avye has also advocated for gender parity in tech through her participation in a range of other panel / keynote sessions as shown below:- 

• Collision Tech Conference April 2021 – Avye & her fellow GenArm2Z ambassadors were invited to speak at the Collision Tech Conference in April 2021 to talk about the future of AI with Arm CEO Simon Segars. 

• WeAreTechWomen – One Tech World Conference 2021

• STEAM Youth & Community Conference 2021 – San Diego University, USA

• Microsoft International Digi Girlz UNESCO 2021– keynote focusing on inspiring and motivating female students. This was part of a virtual event, allowing girls from Kenya, Rwanda, Canada and the US to engage in the first International Virtual Microsoft DigiGirlz Panel and Bootcamp.

• Microbit Live 2020:  Dec 2020 – Avye delivered a keynote at the Microbit Live event where she talked about the Microbit and her Tech journey.

• Arm Dev Summit – October 2020

Avye was invited to the Arm Dev Summit to discuss, “Designing an Ethical Future for the Next Generation” and how technology can help build a more equitable future. 

• CMC Changemakers video – July 2020 – Avye was invited to feature on the Children Media Conference (CMC) Webinar about role models and the future of science and technology.

• Mobile World Congress Barcelona – February 2019 

Avye partnered with Arm to serve as a young ambassador and drive the youth conversation around the use and future of technology, and her mission to empower young people to play an active role in the world’s digital transformation.

• Microbit Live 2019 Conference BBC MediaCityUK, Manchester – Nov 2019:  Avye was invited along with 3 other young tech trailblazers to talk about the Microbit and their experiences with it. 

Aware of the impact that early involvement in tech activities can have on young people, Avye is driven to share her experiences and skills, often leading sessions for various outreach initiatives including the Digi Girlz UNESCO programme and the Royal Institution Computer Master Class Series June 2019

Avye continues to champion young people & women in tech through the different media productions that she has worked on. These commissions include:-

• Raspberry Pi – My Coding Story
• BBC Sounds – We Can Change The World series
• Microsoft Video Industry Production – Meet Avye
• World Summit AI – Day of the Girl Future Leaders

Being able to adapt to several different interview situations, both online and face to face, has allowed Avye to raise awareness of the Girls Into Coding mission and help to inspire girls in and across communities. The list below details a selection of those interview opportunities:-

• We Are Tech Women: Inspirational Girl in Tech
• Cajigo – Women Talk Tech series

• The Female Lead- September 2020
• Interview with Ian Bernstein, founder and Head of Product at @MistyRobotics
• Interview with Microsoft CloudSkills Show: Dec 2020
• Women in Tech Week: In July 2020, a session with the team at the Third Republic as part of their Women in Tech Q&A series. 
• BAFTA Young presenters – October 2020
• Women Rock
• Womanthology
• Interview with GLAM (Girls Leadership Academy Meetup): 

• Raspberry Pi
• CoderDojo

Her work to encourage more girls into STEM has amassed extensive coverage in a wide pool of printed publications from around UK, Europe and the Americas, including:-

Reinvented magazine, The Female Lead, The MagPi, Micro Mag, The Week Junior, Smore Magazine, Hello World Magazine, The Evening Standard, The Daily Express, The Stylist, Linux mag, Etre Mag, OXO magazine, Microsoft Industry Blog, Arm Print Blogs, Pi-Top Mag, Kookie Magazine.

Avye works tirelessly in the tech & maker community, leaning in to help shape an environment for other girls & young women to flourish, and has collaborated on various projects including:

• STEAM Campaign – Partnership with Bizzie Bodies – Sep-Oct 2020, a series of 5 videos that Avye produced & featured in to help promote STEAM to the Youth!
• Visible in Tech campaign – Sep 2020 –  In September 2020, Avye took part in the Visible In tech campaign organised by Coding Black Females
• 1MWS Campaign – Year 2020

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