The schoolgirls of Vahan Tekeyan Basic School in Karbi village of Armenia's Aragatsotn Province were selected as finalists of the 2017 Technovation Challenge international competition, winning the People's Choice Award for an app to help people learn Armenian Sign Language.

The contest was held on 7-11 August in Silicon Valley, the Unites States. The Armenian schoolgirls’ team has already returned the country, Satenik Hakobyan, Headmaster of Vahan Tekeyan Basic School told Panorama.am, adding that they have not yet met with the girls.

The team of the schoolgirls called “One Step Ahead” features Aghavni Hakobyan, Sona Avetisyan, Svetlana Davtyan and Violeta Mkrtchyan, with Vardanush Nazaretyan (Informatics teacher) as their mentor.

“All the teams that made it through to final have been granted $5,000 worth scholarship to continue their studies,” the headmaster said.

The four girls from Kazakhstan behind a safety app called QamCare were crowned the winner of the Senior Division.

Technovation Challenge is a twelve-week program designed for schoolgirls aged 10-18. The programs was implemented at the National Institute of Education in Armenia. The groups of the schoolgirls involving up to 5 members studied one of the topics in line with the objectives of the Sustainable Development, considered the issue in the context of their communities and coded an app that solves the issue.

More than 11,000 girls from 103 countries took part in Technovation Challenge this year.