Aim High and ‘Dare To Dream’ With This New App

Boulder, CO — When you step into a board room, a classroom, or a lab you hope to see the world around you reflected in that room. However, in STEM, the unfortunate reality is that women only make up 28% of the tech workforce. 

Rebecca Wang knows exactly what it’s like to feel underrepresented in this field. She said that in her first hackathon, an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short time such as 24 or 48 hours, the experience encouraged and ignited her passion for technology. “My team back then was so welcoming — a group of college girls willing to mentor a high school freshman,” Wang said.

But Wang’s first hackathon team was a bit of an anomaly. As she participated in more hackathons — working in more co-ed teams — she felt she had to prove her skills to her teammates.

“I think it was my second hackathon that was mainly male-dominated,” Wang said. “I constantly had to prove myself … like, hey, I want to work on the software. I don't need all this pushback.”

This motivated Wang to create the Dare to Dream app and enter Swift Student Challenge, where student developers have the opportunity to showcase their creativity and coding capabilities through app playgrounds and earn real-world skills that they can take into their careers and beyond. She won. 

Dare to Dream's main goal is to empower young women and encourage them to go into the tech industry. The app has had multiple changes since Wang first submitted it to the Apple student challenge. The app is meant to reflect the accomplishments of women in the tech industry to give girls representation. The app also has a feature where girls can connect with a mentor so they can seek out advice. 

The 17-year-old also founded a hackathon that centers on women and nonbinary individuals. Wang felt inspired to do this based on her past experiences at these events, as she would often notice that girls were less likely to return to them. 

“I noticed that a lot of those, hackers at the first hackathon didn't go into the second one or third one, but after speaking to them and learning about their struggles or the reasons why, I realized that identity is a big factor in why girls want to continue a search and feel in Stem,” Wang said,

Wang said she hopes that young women can see themselves reflected in the app by showcasing different women in tech.  

“I hope that Dare to Dream shows women who are accomplished and have shattered barriers,” she said. “I hope that girls see women like them featured in the app on the news. The girls see all their work and accomplishments and believe that they can do it too.” 

Emma Schulman (she/they), is a student journalist and filmmaker majoring in political science at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Edited by Amber Ly and Nykeya Woods