Today CoSydney, the judges, and the sponsors, are pleased to announce the winner of the People’s Choice component of the award, and congratulate the overall winner of the Inaugural Sydney SHINE Awards 2015 with the prize valued at $15,000.
Danielle Gerber’s Spellwick proposal – a magical creative writing app designed to enable children to improve spelling and vocabulary.
Here is the link to her interview with Heather McNab from Central Sydney Magazine
http://newslocal.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx?noredirect=true
“Ms Gerber, a veteran teacher, has created Spellwick, an app which helps children improve their vocabulary and spelling ability through an enchanting fruit universe.
“Children have an amazing imagination and I want to give them the power to unleash that,” she said.
“There are lots of kids out there who were enamoured with the Harry Potter books, but then had no way to go and write and create their own stories.”
Within the app, children are encouraged to help save the planet Helio from evil wizards. They earn magic spells by spelling out words.
“This will help develop confidence and, as an end result, they can write creative stories which will empower them in both their writing and in their life to be creative,” Ms Gerber said.
As part of the Shine Award, presented in partnership with Bendigo Bank Pyrmont, wins Gerber takes home a $5000 prize, a work space within CoSydney and access to the enterprise’s one-on-one business mentorship programs.
Gerber said she would use the money to spread the word about her app — and said she was “ecstatic” about the opportunities the prize would provide.
“I’d really like to see children benefit from what I’ve created.,” she said.
“My dream is to help children shine.”
