WomenTechies’19 — An Attempt To Bring More #WomenInTech
Women Techmakers, an initiative by Google, has a vision of creating gender equality in the field of computer science, and to encourage and support women in tech to become active role models and leaders in the field of technology. WomenTechmakers VIT Vellore in collaboration with DSC VIT has been continuously launching scalable initiatives and piloting new programs to support this vision and empower women in the industry. We have been conducting sessions, workshops and hackathons throughout the year to help the student community grow and develop themselves.
It was during December 2018 when we first thought about conducting this year’s edition of WomenTechies.
The aim was to get more #WomenInTech.
I have been to several hackathons and the one thing I noticed in all the technical events was the low turnout of female participants. This is what we wanted to do differently with WomenTechies.
❝ The team of 62 members started working on the plan of conducting the 2nd edition of WomenTechies.❞
What’s WomenTechies?
WomenTechies is a female-centric hackathon through which we aim to provide, talented and innovative women the platform and resources to push their limits. It is a platform for female participants to test their skills, explore the world of hackathons and create innovative projects to revolutionize the world.
How it all happened?
The 24 hour-long hack kicked off at 7:00 PM on 10th March 2019 with an ice-breaking session and speaker talks by Mr Clement from LBRY and Mr Vinayak Jhunjhunwala and Mr Anshaj Khare from SlangLabs. The coding session began at 9:00 PM with more than 35 teams working strenuously to create tech-projects which would solve problems of thousand others.
The first technical review was taken by DSC VIT’s technical team around 4:00 AM where the feasibility of the idea and probable methodology was considered for evaluation and suggestions were given by our technical team on how to proceed further. Meanwhile, pizzas 🍕 and cold drinks 🥤 were distributed to the participants to prepare themselves for a long coding period. Students coded for another 6–8 hours to build a semi-functional prototype of their idea and after that, the second technical review was conducted.
Unlimited coffee️ for the caffeine addicts and iced tea for the weird ones were available throughout this time as refreshments.
The teams were given inputs accordingly and they prepared their projects for the third and the final review. A total of 10 teams were shortlisted for the pitching round where the finalists showcased their final prototypes after which, the results were declared.
WomenTechies had prize money of INR 39,000 along with exclusive goodies for social media contests, quizzes and lucky coupon codes. Every participant was greeted with a special goodie box from Google. Some won prizes, some improved their skills and several others just entered the world of tech. After all, it was a hack where everyone wins!
I, on behalf of WTM VIT and DSC VIT, thank all of the participants who actively participated in the hack. I would also like to thank our sponsors who helped us conduct the hackathon smoothly and provide the deliverables to the participants.
