Sophie Crowder is currently a seventh grader at Kenston Forest School and a member of the KFS Robotics Team. She participated in a Coding event on Saturday, October 21st at Southern Virginia Higher Education Center. She was recommended by the KFS Robotics coach & STEAM mentor, Mr. Jason Buchanan. Sophie is the daughter of Jimmie and Wella Crowder of South Hill.

The event was sponsored by Capital One. The program is aimed at middle school girls to help them bridge the digital gender gap, empower them with technological skills, and inspire their interest in STEM-related fields such as coding and software engineering. There were other girls from all over southside Virginia participating. The morning session consisted of hands-on workshops facilitated by professional mentors from Capital One. In the afternoon, they were grouped in teams where they had to complete different coding challenges. The final challenge was to create and develop their own mobile app that would be helpful to their communities and/or the world.

Sophie’s team of four chose her idea, titled “Be-My-Buddy.” They wanted to create an app that aims to address bullying and connect users to support groups that could provide counseling and help with suicide prevention.

After building the app, they presented it to the judges and it was awarded first place. They earned an invitation to the Women In Technology coding experience in Richmond on November 15, where they will be joined by other winning teams from different regions, as well as meeting and learning from successful women front runners in STEM.