Teen Girls Pitch Apps To Top Executives

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Eight teenage girls from around Minnesota got some facetime with some of the most powerful business leaders in the country.

Twenty-three floors into the sky sits one of the most exclusive rooms in Minnesota: The boardroom at U.S. Bank, a Fortune 100 company.

Now, eight teenage girls have a place at the table. To give you some context on how exclusive this is, some U.S. Bank employees said hardly anyone gets to sit at that table.

"For me personally, it didn't really sink in until we got here and I looked up at the building and I was like, 'This is a little scary,'" Elizabeth Schieffelvein from Rochester said.

Schieffelvein and three classmates were first to pitch to the CEO of U.S. Bank. They coded, researched and created an app to fight climate change.

They are part of U.S. Bank's partnership with Technovation that is getting girls into coding and creating, so they got to pitch to top executives.

The second tech team came from Andersen United Middle School in Minneapolis. After listening to classmates, they came up with an app to stabilize mental health with daily affirmations and breathing exercises.

Lastly, a duo from Wayzata High School came up with a way to better sort recycling and get young people involved using a competition-based app.

The U.S. Bank execs were impressed to say the least.

"I've had a lot of presentations in this room given to me and you guys were right at the top," U.S. Bank CEO Andrew Cecere said. "So if you're available for my next board meeting, I'd like to utilize you."

After the pitches, the execs played with the products

"I always get impressed by their ability to say here is something either we or our colleagues or peers have been trying to figure out, so let's come up with a solution in a simple way to help solve a problem," Cecere said.

As for the girls, they were impressed, too.

"We were really excited when we found out we were gonna come here, considering it's such a big platform," Wayzata High School's Kavia Prasav said.

"It was really fun showing it to all the leaders here. I think their feedback was really valuable and something we can take on," Shriya Srinivas of Wayzata said.

At this rate, it seems these girls who just took on corporate America are ready to take on the world.

The girls ranged from seventh grade to seniors in high school.