Awakening an Interest in Programming through Play

The players usually solve the tasks in FemQuest together. Image source: ISDS - TU Graz - Together with the social services provider Jugend am Werk Steiermark, TU Graz has developed a workshop and a multi-user game to introduce young women to programming. The game is now freely available. As part of its careers guidance programme for young people, the social services provider Jugend am Werk Steiermark has discovered that girls and young women have little interest in IT professions. They also often don't know what professional fields there are and what skills are needed for them. In the FemQuest project funded by the Federal Chancellery's Section for Women's Affairs and Gender Equality, a workshop was therefore developed together with the Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), which offers a low-threshold introduction to the topic using digital and analogue means. According to surveys of the participants, this was also successful.