Dalriada app to tackle period poverty in UK final

An app to help tackle period poverty designed by students from Ballymoney’s Dalriada School has reached the finals of a UK-wide competition.
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The Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize, delivered by Nesta Challenges, has today unveiled the finalist shortlist of inspirational projects from teams of 11-16 year olds in the running to win the £20,000 first prize.

The Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize pairs STEM knowledge with new entrepreneurial skills and calls on young people to develop innovative ‘tech for good’ solutions to help solve society’s biggest issues.

The team ‘Dalriada Girls’ has created ‘Go with the Flow’ - an app that enables girls to order free monthly period product packs to their home or school, as well as setting motivation and fitness goals and providing mental health tips and sports skills.

Dalriada is the only school from Northern Ireland to have reached the finals stage of the competition.

The Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize received more than 150 entries this year from over 500 young people across the UK. 40 finalists projects, submitted by teams of 11-16 year-old students, have been selected by a panel of expert judges including Jacqueline de Rojas CBE, President of techUK, Lauren Kisser, Director at Amazon’s Development Centre in Cambridge and DeepMind’s Obum Ekeke, Global Lead for University Relations & Education Partnerships.

The finalist teams will each be connected to an expert mentor from Amazon and other industry-leading organisations. They will mentor teams on topics such as data analytics, software engineering, robotics, and app development, to create prototypes of their concepts to help determine the winner this July. They will all be invited to participate in the Amazon Longitude Explorer Prizes’ Enterprise Academy business day workshops and will also receive one-to-one technology support from FireTech UK - the UK’s leading technology course provider for children aged 8-17.

In July, the winning team will be awarded £20,000 for its school or youth group, with three teams of runners-up to be awarded £5,000 each for their school or youth group. The public will also be given the chance to choose their favourite design in the People’s Choice Award in June, the winner of which will receive £5,000 prize money for its school or youth group.

To find out more about the Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize and all 40 of the finalist teams visit https://longitudeexplorer.challenges.org/.

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