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:-
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: –
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:-
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.
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.
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:-
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:-
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:
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