Shout Out to the Group of Girls who Came Up with an App that Teaches You IRL Where Women Made HERstory

In the spirit of Women’s History Month, let us hit you with a question: ever wish you could go back in time and discover all of the extraordinary achievements women made throughout HERstory? Well, you sort of can. A few years ago, The SPARK Movement, a non-profit by and for girls ages 13-22, partnered with Google to create a smartphone app Women On The Map, that alerts you when you’re near places where women made history.

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The non-profit is made up of engaged, passionate girls and young women who are building their own solutions and leading a movement against the sexualization, objectification, and violence against women present in the media. SPARK arms activists, educators, community leaders, and girls themselves to foster coalition and partnerships in order to ignite and support a global young feminist movement.

They first had the idea for the app after noticing that only 17% of women were highlighted in Google’s daily doodles honoring people from 2010 to 2013. The non-profit sought to change these numbers by reaching out to the tech giant.

As SPARK activist Celeste explains, “Google Doodles may seem lighthearted, especially when they’re accompanied by quirky games and animation, but the reality is that these doodles have emerged as a new manifestation of who we value as a society — a sign of who ‘matters.’ Just like statues, stamps, and national holidays, you know that if someone is featured on Google’s homepage, they’ve done something important.”

The app was then created in collaboration with Google, and uses their existing “Field Trip mapping app, which notifies you when you’re near women’s history-making locations. While working on the app, the SPARK team researched the women they wanted highlighted by including the stories of 119 women from 28 countries, with more than 60 percent being women of color.

“The purpose of Women On The Map is to show the world that there were (and are) so many women whose accomplishments have been seemingly invisible to us,” Ajaita Saini, a member of the SPARK team told The Huffington Post. “We need girls to know that they can be whatever they want, and their contributions are as equal as if a guy did it instead. Likewise, we need guys to know that not everything done in the past was the work of men.”

If you’re feeling jazzed to get involved after reading about their amazing work, SPARK invites you to contribute to their database and write about a woman whose life inspires you. As their website reads “By increasing the visibility of accomplished women around the world, we give girls like us a new way to learn a more inclusive HERstory.”