The competition seeks to promote careers in science, technology, engineering and maths, to school girls and tap their creative potential.

More than 60 school teams across Australia have now registered in the competition, who will each create an app that solves a problem in their community.

Maitland High School in New South Wales is taking part and teenager Lara Jukes admits it would be “crazy” if she landed her idea for an app on the Appstore.

The students have thrown up ideas that even the University of Newcastle concedes would give graduates a run for their money.

Among them is Lara’s idea to build an app to organise Maitland’s community events in one place. 

“A lot of things happen in Maitland and you only really find out about them once they’ve been and gone,” the 14-year-old said. “If we could put all of those events in one place, it would be easy to find out what’s going around you.”

University of Newcastle IT lecturer Dr Karen Blackmore praised the student’s creative ideas while giving them a crash course in app building.

“This week we’ve seen new ideas, new ways of thinking and problem-solving,” she said.

The competition is also looking for mentors, who will become role models and guide teams through the competition curriculum.

For more information, visit http://www.techgirlsmovement.org/mentors-for-the-search-needed/