Helene Virolan | Director, Girls Into Coding
Helene has a keen interest in STEM education and comes from a business background. She is also a STEM Ambassador and a Rasberry Pi Certified Educator. Engaging young people with tech opportunities, along with helping to address the female underrepresentation in STEM education and occupations are among Helene’s passions. She is driven to improve access to and share the benefits of technology, facilitating and imparting key digital skills to the young generation. She is an accomplished and resourceful professional with extensive experience in digital marketing, account management as well as business strategy and leadership.
Three years ago (2018), she supported her now 14-year-old daughter Avye (a maker & coder), in founding “Girls Into Coding” – a social enterprise that engages girls with hands-on tech through robotics, physical computing, coding, 3D printing, and 3D Design workshop activities. Their tech journey together has been fantastic, and she’s very proud of what they’ve achieved. Working with her daughter made Helene realise that she wanted to continue this journey, and continue making a difference towards closing the gender gap in the tech industry. To formalise the commitment to this, Girls Into Coding was granted the status of Community Interest Company in 2020 and Avye has entrusted Helene as director and project manager to steward the Girls into Coding mission, giving it the full-time attention it deserves – Helene & Avye are now a rare mother and daughter team in tech space.
Helene is also the co-founder of Green Green Robotics. Together with her business partner, they have just launched their new start-up with the aim of using robotics to reduce waste and pollution. They plan to launch their first product in 2022 as well as create educational examples of technology that improves lives.
