Two girls attend a sci-tech literacy camp held by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund in Shenzhen of South China's Guangdong Province. [CCTF]

It was the first time for Yang Yang (not her real name), a Spring Bud girl from Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, to take a flight and visit a large city in her life.

The destination of Yang's first-ever travel was Shenzhen, in South China's Guangdong Province, where she and other Spring Bud girls from Youyang, as well as 15 Spring Bud girls from Gangou Middle School in Jingning County, Northwest China's Gansu Province, attended a sci-tech literacy camp.

In 2021, the China Children and Teenagers' Fund (CCTF) launched a public-welfare program titled the Sci-tech Literacy for Girls under the Spring Bud Project to help Spring Bud girls nationwide better embrace, fall in love with and utilize technologies in the midst of the fast development of the Internet, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and the IoT (internet of things).

During the past several years, the project has held sci-tech literacy camp activities in Beijing, Shenzhen and other cities and organized training courses on creative technologies and general knowledge with the participation of nearly 10,000 girls from nine provincial regions.

The camp in Shenzhen provided the girls with such courses as product planning, interactive design, 3D modeling, and creative sales. Many trainees said that there was little access for them to approach software tools, programming knowledge and other internet-related concepts before the camp.

"I didn't expect that we could complete the design of an app in just a few days," said Yang, adding that she had a dream of working in a sci-tech company after the conclusion of the camp.

Wang Aikang, a student from Gangou Middle School, said that the camp had enabled her to basically master the drawing of pictures on the computer. In the past, she had never learned such computer graphics concepts as pixel, high-fidelity and low-fidelity image.

During their stay in Shenzhen, the Spring Bud girls started to think about the utilization of Internet technology to solve specific problems in daily life. For instance, some of them designed an app to promote the sales of agricultural products in their hometown.

The camp has opened a door for the Spring Bud girls to embrace and learn more about modern technologies.

Deng Zhimin, a student from Youyang No.1 Middle School, said that the activity had further deepened her understanding of the Internet era and that she wanted to be a doctor to contribute to the country's sci-tech and medical causes in the future.

Xi Jianhua, vice-principal of Gangou Middle School, said that he hoped this special experience would help the girls expand their horizons and have a broader imagination of their future when they select a university and academic discipline.

Meanwhile, the camp also organized creative education workshops, invited the rural teachers to hold discussions about how to further enhance children and teenagers' sci-tech literacy and meet their diversified development needs, and encouraged the teachers to advocate project-based learning model in rural schools.

This year, the CCTF has launched a new-phase Spring Bud girls's sci-tech literacy program, which underscores science and digital education, invites the Spring Bud girls in junior and senior middle schools to experience advanced technological equipment, attend sci-tech exhibitions and sit in universal dual-teacher classes, and hosts a wide range of sci-tech camp activities on frontier technologies and cultural confidence in a drive to continuously enhance their sci-tech and digital literacy and skills and lead them to seek a long-term development in the field of science and technology.

(Source: CCTF/Women of China)

Editor: Wang Shasha