We Held The Most Diverse and Inclusive Hackathon in SF; Here’s How We Did It

This is the account of how we organized and ran the One Web For All kick-off hackathon in SF.

It is a bold claim to state we were the most diverse and inclusive, but we feel fairly confident about it. Not because of our own assessment, but because of our attendees’ wildly enthusiastic accounts to back it up. Why were they so pleased with it?

On early February 1 and 2, people of nearly all demographics walked into our host New Relic’s office in SOMA, San Francisco — some led by guide dogs, and many having traveled quite a distance to attend this special event. The topic of our hackathon: improving the world from a socioeconomic perspective, using technology to raise awareness; to provide tools, apps and resources that help people lead better, healthier, more empowered and more successful lives.

This is the mission of One Web For All, a new non-profit organization started by Cori Johnson and myself, with Ashe Dryden and Dr. Kortney Ziegler. We acknowledge the need for better tools and resources, as well as the community’s eagerness to work together to create them. The hackathon was our kick-off to get things started, and to learn more about how and where we could make ourselves most useful.

You might say that we “cheated” by specifically organizing an event aimed at inclusivity and diversity, but there are many things we did that would work for any hackathon or similar event.

A Code of Conduct

There has been much debate over the topic of CoC’s recently, sparked in part by Ashe Dryden’s overview of A year+ in Codes of Conduct at tech conferences, followed by her starting the #CoCpledge hashtag. But a pledge not to speak at or attend events and conferences that have no clear CoC isn’t new: in July last year, popular Sci-Fi author and blogger John Scalzi posted such a pledge on his site, and let others co-sign it.

I won’t recount the many reasons why your event should absolutely have a CoC—for that, read Ashe’s excellent Codes of Conduct 101 if you’re still not convinced—and simply stick to how we implemented ours.

We had our short-form CoC featured on the homepage of the event, with a link to our detailed policy that included descriptions of what we consider harassment. We also planned to email this to each attendee upon signing up, as part of the regular signup confirmation email, but unfortunately that got a bit lost in the process. We recommend doing this, and will ourselves for all our future events.

We made it very clear at the start of the event, during the opening notes, that we employed a Code of Conduct, what it meant, and that we would enforce it. (Not just us, but also New Relic, the location host.) We pointed out who the staff members were that people could reach out to if needed, and made sure our staff knew what to do if contacted.

Making sure that everyone felt safe and welcomed was our top priority, and it showed: attendees (and staff) were raving both during and after the event about the welcoming, friendly and safe atmosphere we all enjoyed.

We hesitated for a long time to even call our event a hackathon, but decided to stick with it for lack of a better term that would adequately convey the nature of our event. At least until we’d have a precedent to point to and say “it’ll be like that, but even better.”

Inclusive Everything

We spent a great amount of time and effort on refining the language we used across all our channels of communication: the website, emails, tweets, announcements, and temporary signage at the event.

This stuff matters. We’ve had numerous people tell us that at other hackathons they felt like they weren’t valued (equally) or seen as important, because they either didn’t code or weren’t “good enough” coders. Not so at ours, though. Why?

Mainly, we were very explicit about people having something valuable to contribute no matter what their skill set was. We explicitly welcomed people of all backgrounds and disciplines. We came up with (and people brought) project ideas that weren’t solely “hack a bit of code together to do X.” We did as much as we could to make it clear that, whoever you were and whatever your skills, we would find some way for you to contribute meaningfully.

(Aside: I’m personally convinced that many developers have a huge blind spot to people’s abilities to contribute as non-coders. The state of open source software is very obvious—and damning—evidence of this, but I digress.)

We hesitated for a long time to even call our event a hackathon, but decided to stick with it for lack of a better term that would adequately convey the nature of our event. At least until we’d have a precedent to point to and say “it’ll be like that, but even better.” Nonetheless, we know some people were deterred by the term because they don’t code. Language matters a lot in this regard—some will simply not even read the inclusive copy on your website if they hear or see that it’s “a hackathon.”

Then there are things like making sure food and drinks are available for everyone no matter their dietary restrictions and allergies, making sure the location is ADA accessible, and being very responsive to attendees expressing a need.

Not Competitive

My co-host Cori is writing up a wrap-up of the event that will go into much more detail about this, because the non-competitive nature of our hackathon played a huge part in making everyone feel welcome and valued equally.

We had no prizes to be won, no challenges to beat, and no deadlines to meet. Being competitive may be useful for your career or in sports, but collaborative events like hackathons—especially if you intend for the outcome to be something of meaning or social value—are generally much better off without that competitive edge. Additionally, there are many societal influences that overwhelmingly draw men to such events over women and others, which encourages a more exclusive atmosphere..

Set your goals clearly

We weren’t organizing this event to help investors profile themselves, look good, or find new talented startups to invest in. We weren’t doing it to promote technologies, companies, or startup accelerators. Our sponsors got (some) promotion from us, yes, but they were clearly secondary to the attendees and projects themselves. And the projects were all about doing something of meaningful and lasting value for everyone.

Our goals were: for people to feel safe and welcome, for people to feel valued, for people to feel they could contribute meaningfully, for people to work together on things that they felt mattered, and for people to meet other great people and make new connections. And, hopefully, all that would culminate in a series of great projects being made or started on. (It did.)

You should notice that investors, companies, publications, or even our own organization, are not mentioned in that list. Glorifying and idolizing are practices that taint an event at best, and at worst an entire community.

Know your limitations and shortcomings

We had a very small team doing most of the work preparing and organizing this event, so there were things we didn’t get to do (properly or at all) in time for the event. For instance, we couldn’t figure out a way to make our two-day event accessible to deaf people without requiring a huge (sponsored) commitment from ASL interpreters. We also didn’t mention that childcare could be provided up front if needed, nor were our temporary restrooms adjustments fully accessible to the blind. We’ve learned from these shortcomings and aim to do better for future events.

Any hackathon has the potential to be great

Events like hackathons are fantastic opportunities for people to feel part of a community, to feel welcome in an industry, to learn new things and make new connections. It should be about the value you get from bringing people together, and seeing what they do. Making it inclusive for everyone to attend and participate gets you halfway; focusing on the people themselves and facilitating them to do the great work they’re capable of is what makes your event a winner.

We look forward to seeing you at our next event!