Avonbourne College has won AOL UK’s YouBuild competition. The Bournemouth based girls Academy have created a website, which will help aspiring entrepreneurs in developing countries.
YouBuild was a competition created to engage and inspire school children to learn how to code. In partnership with international charity and educational partner, Free The Children, as well as Codeacademy, YouBuild tasked over 12,000 pupils across the country to help their school and local community through the power of code.
The winning website idea was conceived by a class of Year 8 students, who have already devised a business model that grants micro-finance to aspiring entrepreneurs in developing countries, as an alternative to charitable donations.
The all-female students have asked AOL to help them engage students through the creation of a mobile responsive website, which will allow students across Colleges within the Multi Academy Trust, a chance to vote for projects they should finance.
The winning idea was selected by a panel of judges from AOL, Codeacademy, Free The Children and 15 year-old Amy Mather, who was awarded the European Digital Girl of Europe Award by The European Commission.
Avonbourne College will be provided with laptops from AOL and will spend a day working with AOL developers and Codeacademy, learning how to build the website on Wednesday 3 June 2015. AOL will also continue to help Avonbourne College manage the site once it has been built.
The competition speaks to AOL’s mission, to unleash the world’s greatest creators of culture and code. It also ties in with AOL’s broader corporate citizenship strategy and commitment to creating opportunities for future leaders, through better access to technology and education.