The Lady Problems Hackathon Series is Over, Now Comes the Accelerator
The series may be done, but the companies are just starting
Last year at AngelHack, we had the pleasure of hosting Lady Problems: a 17-city Global Hackathon Series designed to address problems preventing female entrepreneurship.
A total of 2,176 people joined the movement, building more than 200 projects addressing challenges related to health, culture, economic empowerment, and safety. The event is part of AngelHack’s initiatives via our nonprofit-arm, Code For A Cause, to support and engage with diverse communities in tech.
We’re still buzzing from the results — we set out to achieve an equal gender ratio (hackathons are typically around 80% male), and we surpassed that goal at 60% global female attendance. There are many powerful stories from these events, but some of our favorites include achieving 83% female attendance in Gaza (check out the video) and a feature in Fast Company about a Caraboo, a solution built to tackle imposter syndrome in the workplace. You can learn even more about the impact here.
We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far, but we’re not stopping there.
Next up, we’ll be accelerating the top teams from across the globe out of the Lady Problems Hackathon series — from the U.S., Europe, Africa and more. During Lady Problems, our goal was to find solutions to the problems facing women in tech and increase the number of female participants at hackathons.
For the Lady Problems Accelerator, our goal is to show the world how successful social good companies can be and help push these much needed solutions to market.
Even better? All of these solutions are designed to empower and support women.
To accomplish this, we’ve teamed up with one of our favorite partners, BlueChilli. They’re currently running a program called SheStarts which accelerates female founders in Australia, making them a natural partner for the project. Nicole Hazell, Head of Diversity & Social Impact at BlueChilli, served on the Advisory Board for Lady Problems and will be featured as a guest speaker during the Lady Problems Accelerator.
Beginning this week, the top six teams from the program will begin a three month custom built program specifically designed to focus on social good companies with an emphasis on sustainability, diversity, technology, and impact.
Here’s a peek at just some of the teams:
- Chowder’s Loft (Nairobi, Kenya): A mobile app and web platform designed to prevent gender and sexual violence, while also reducing the time to access medical help for survivors.
- The Rudite (Delhi, India): The Rudite provides integrated information about available scholarships for women.
- Broadroom (Los Angeles, USA): A secondhand work-wear sales app dedicated to outfitting, empowering, and connecting professional women of all shapes, sizes, and identities.
Looking to get involved? Interesting in supporting entrepreneurs focused on diversity and social impact? We’d love your support, particularly around mentorship and securing capital for each of the teams. Reach out to adi@angelhack.com to learn more about how you can get involved in the Lady Problems Accelerator and/or virtual pitch day!
We’ll be updating our community on how the teams are progressing throughout the program and just like our HACKcelerator program we’re bringing back #HACKonAir episodes back to our YouTube channel so you can get to know them a bit better. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates!
