Irish girl Niamh Scanlon up for European Digital Girl of the Year

16 Nov 2015

Niamh Scanlon is in line for the prestigious European Digital Girl of the Year award

13-year-old coder Niamh Scanlon has been named a finalist for the European Digital Girl of the Year award, with the regular Siliconrepublic.com columnist down to the final two.

One year on from Lauren Boyle’s fantastic winning of the same award, Niamh Scanlon’s already extensive history in coding is clearly standing her in good stead.

Due to give a keynote at next summer’s Inspirefest, Scanlon’s portfolio is incredibly well stocked for someone of such a young age, with the winner of the European Digital Girl of the Year title announced on 14 December.

Scanlon learned to code at CoderDojo when she was nine, moving on to website design and app development soon after.

Scanlon’s site Learntocode.eu was set up a few years ago to help fellow young coders around Europe to hone their craft. She was 11 at the time. She also developed an award-winning app to help the drivers of electric cars.

For three years, Niamh has mentored at CoderDojo in DCU, where she helps others learn how to code, and she’s a member of the Digital Youth Council.

Scanlon has been a regular guest columnist with Siliconrepublic.com in the past, documenting her experiences at Girls Hack Ireland back in March, and Outbox Incubator in August.

Here is an interview with Scanlon from earlier this year.

 

Women Invent is Silicon Republic’s campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. It has been running since March 2013, and is kindly supported by Intel, Open Eir (formerly Eircom Wholesale), Fidelity Investments, Accenture and CoderDojo.

Inspirefest is Silicon Republic’s international event connecting sci-tech professionals passionate about the future of STEM. Join us again from 30 June to 2 July 2016 for fresh perspectives on leadership, innovation and diversity. Get your Super Early Bird tickets now.

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com