An experience on virtual hands-on workshops to bring teenage girls to Computer Science in Uruguay

The decreasing presence of woman in the Computer Science area is a well-known issue that has been occurring from nearly the last three decades. There are several international studies and Ibero and Latin American studies that show this reality in several countries. The causes of this phenomena has been analyzed and several influential elements were identified, which promote negative stereotypes that make them walk away from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers, mainly Computer Science. For the last five years we have carried out activities to promote these careers between high school girls, working against these preconceptions and negative stereotypes, in particular with hands-on workshops on the occasion of the Girls in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Day. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we could not carry out the activities in person as in previous years, so we experimented with virtual hands-on workshops in the Girls in ICT day 2021. The change of format to a virtual one entitles several challenges, both social and technological, as well as opportunities such as allowing girls who live in the countryside, to participate without having to spend on transportation. In this paper we present the experience on two virtual hands-on workshops we carried out on programming and data at the Facultad de Ingenieria (School of Engineering), Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay, to bring teenage girls to the Computer Science area. © 2021 CEUR-WS. All rights reserved.