Hooked on WiCHacks…Intuit + RIT’s WiC, women in computing, partnership

“My daughter is in middle school and she only likes this kind of stuff. She always wants to come to these but they’re far from home. Sometimes, we have to drive more than 30 minutes away. Should I keep supporting her?” A mom leaned in and posed this question to me and Ojas Sitapara at the first ever WiCHacks, Women in Computing Hackathon, at Rochester Institute of Technology, RIT. That was March, 2014. Ojas and I, along with a small crew of engineering coaches from Intuit came to WiCHacks not knowing what to expect but we know we wanted to coach and help teams, and maybe…just maybe, find an awesome team member or two to hire for our co-op program.

So when this mom of the only middle school student at WICHacks asked me the question, “Should I keep supporting her?” I didn’t hesitate to answer. I said “Yes, of course. She may even change the world.” When I said this, we both smiled. The funny thing is that her daughter was part of a five woman high-school team who ended up winning 5 awards, including the one that Intuit sponsored called “most novel.” (Amazing, right?)

Now, fast forward to February, 2016 and our Intuit team is back at WiCHacks and we see this same highschool team and the same middle school student…but now, the highschool students are graduating this summer and the middle schooler is now in high-school. Yes, this middle school student came back (three years later) and she is still coding but now, she is also leading a separate team. In fact, this once shy middle-schooler stopped me in the hallway and asked “Do you remember me? I’m in highschool now.”

Isn’t that so cool?!! I was so happy to see her and catch up with her that I immediately sent a txt to my manager, Alex Balazs, to say how meeting up with the students from three years ago reminds me why I love what I do (even though I am dressed like a bear in the freezing temperatures of Rochester NY…my Cali West Coast self requires at least 50 additional pounds of layers to brave temperatures below 50 degrees — ha!) and why it’s important that companies sponsor hackathons like WiCHacks. Even today, as I think about catching up with this student, I get a little nostalgic about that first time when I saw her and her team present their solution in a roomful of competitive hackers.

In the last three years, a small group of Intuit engineers and talent team members show up and support the 24 hour WiCHacks event — foregoing sleep to coach and to guide “hacker” teams of high school and college students. It’s fun, tiring, crazy and rewarding — all rolled into a 1 weekend experience. I get hooked on all this energy and so do my other colleagues who join and brave this crazy frigid weather (Have I mentioned that I look like a bear when I travel for WiCHacks? Ha!)

Many of the students drive at least an hour to take part in this female focused hackathon. Students from more than ten universities take part in the WiCHacks weekend. Each year, the number of young women who join the event grows and now, WiCHacks is gearing up for its fourth year (February 25–26, 2017) and its biggest ever — hoping to have over 300 young women participate.

Now, I wanted to take a moment to reflect back on the lessons I’ve learned along with my Intuit colleagues who have been part of WiCHacks from year one. They may not seem so profound to you but these lessons have helped me become a better mentor, a better team member and a better leader in my day to day.

1. You (the company/the coach/the mentor) are there for the students as much as they may be there for the event (or as much as they are there to be recruited.) This is a huge lesson I learned from Ron Jones and Geoff Howard, both previous leaders at Intuit who helped us, the engineering coaches, focus on a purpose. The phrase “we are there for the students” sets the tone for team members who join your company’s crew at the hackathon. It’s a purpose bigger than each of us — ensuring that our primary goal is to grow and support young talent.
2. Teach self reflection as you coach at a hackathon. The students will be uber focused on solving the problem or winning one of the prizes that it’s really up to us (the coaches) to point out what they learned or how far they’ve come in a short amount of time. It may be the first time they are committing code into a Git repo or it may be the first time they are learning HTML and CSS to create the front-end experience of their solution. It’s a big deal to take a moment and reflect on small and big wins. I always get a kick out of teams who share what they personally learned from the hackathon experience, in addition to describing their solution — I do think they get the loudest applause from the audience.
3. Don’t underestimate the power of the phrase… “keep going”. For many, hackathons are these short bursts of intense teamwork and coding to deliver a solution…but it’s so much more. When we help teams with their questions and coach them with how to think about the problem, we always try to instill the notion that the hackathon is just the beginning…that after the event, they can still “keep going and keep learning.” Many teams will not win a prize but it’s important they know that the journey is still wide open to continue… to create, to learn and to reimagine.

I’m really looking forward to working with the WiCHacks group and their leader, Lana Verschage, Director of Women in Computing at RIT. It’s going to be an awesome WiCHacks and I hope that you consider joining — just bundle up because it is the dead of winter (I know, I keep repeating myself on this, ha!)

Want to sponsor the upcoming WiCHacks? There is still plenty of opportunity to help out — both in financial support and in coaching teams, http://wic-hacks.rit.edu/index.php#sponsor

Are you a student who wants to sign up for WiCHacks? We’d love to see you there… http://wic-hacks.rit.edu (transportation from some universities may be available so don’t forget to ask)

Questions about WiCHacks? Contact WiCHacks team at http://wic-hacks.rit.edu/

Questions about Intuit’s support of and experience with WiCHacks? Contact me at Aliza_Carpio@intuit.com

I hope you enjoy this piece — it was a lot of fun to write it!