Isabella Dym and Aanya Pillai are on a mission to share their love of tech with grade-school girls. They created a nonprofit organization, Tech InnovateHERS, to run mini-camps designed to empower the next generation of female tech leaders. In July, Irvine campers designed emojis, made digital songs and built and raced robots.
It’s quite an achievement, considering Isabella is 15 years old, and Aanya all of 14. The two Irvine teens aren’t just go-getters – they’re also beneficiaries of an innovative Irvine-based enterprise, the Dragon Kim Foundation, which is training young leaders from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in Arizona, California and Nevada to follow their passions while helping their community.
Isabella, who attends University High, and Aanya, who goes to Sage Hill High School, have been friends for years and share a strong interest in STEM (science, tech, engineering and math). They want to see more girls embrace the field.
“There are a lot of studies that show that girls like tech to begin with, but as they get older are told it’s not a good field for them,” Isabella says. Both teens want them to know that tech is more than coding, and it’s not boring; it can really be fun.
Fifty-four young girls attended three Tech InnovateHERS workshops held this summer, with Isabella and Aanya running separate programs. The curriculum helped children try their hands at robotics, fashion tech, music tech and CGI.
Isabella held a one-day camp at Families Forward, an Irvine nonprofit that provides food and housing to those in need. Aanya held a weekend-long camp for girls without housing at OC Rescue Mission and added classes to an existing camp at the Delhi Center in Santa Ana. She says both locations have asked her to return.
On her LinkedIn page, Isabella now lists her occupation as “Jr. Venture Capitalist.”
“This program has been life-changing, really shaping who we are and helping us grow as people,” Aanya says.
