Founded in 2006 as Iridescent, Technovation was born out of an idea CEO Tara Chklovski had gotten hooked on as an engineer at USC. Looking around at her fellow grad students, Tara realized how few women and people of color were in the room. Determined to change that – not just in her cohort, but everywhere – she left and started our organization to reach young people and get them excited about science, technology, and innovation.

Technovation’s first program, Family Science, began in 2007 at one school in Los Angeles, and then spread to more schools in the area, and eventually the San Francisco Bay Area. From there, the organization began to grow, learning to create programs at school, spreading to New York and Chicago and Florida. And then, in 2010, the Technovation Girls program launched

In 2012, a site dedicated to hands-on design challenges for students of all ages launched, and in 2013, the programs went global. Since 2013, we’ve focused on improving our model, developing stronger curriculum, engaging more industry experts as mentors, judges, and advisers, and learning about our programs’ impact – and how to deepen it.

We believe transparency is key to develop trust, and want to share why we do what we do. Explore the documents that guide our strategy and model, and read our recent annual report for our reflections on what we’ve accomplished this year, what it’s taught us, and how we want to do even better moving forward