Introducing: the cmd-f Countdown Series
Behind nwPlus’ new event series dedicated to to empowering women* in tech all year round 💕
In 2019, nwPlus was proud to bring you cmd-f: Vancouver’s first all-female* hackathon, which proved to be a massive success! cmd-f’s mission was to create a space to let women* help other women*, to build confidence and positive STEM identities, and to foster learning. However, this support should not end after 24 hours.
As mentioned in our article outlining the new additions to the nwPlus 2019/2020 year, this year we were excited to launch our cmd-f Countdown Series of three women* in tech events leading up to our cmd-f hackathon. With these events, we can continue building and supporting this community of empowered young women* all year round!
The cmd-f team would like to acknowledge that “female” or “women” is not an accurate description for many people and it may make some feel unwelcome. We use * to specifically and intentionally include cis and trans women, as well as non-binary, agender and intersex people.
Let’s see how they went so far:
Phase One: Learn & Network ft. UBC PINK 🤝
On September 19th, 2019, we collaborated with UBC PINK to launch our first event of the cmd-f countdown series, cmd-f Phase One: Learn & Network. Phase One was a women* in tech and entrepreneurship speed-mentoring meetup followed by a casual networking and mingling session.
During the speed-mentoring meetup, participants rotated through different discussion circles to speak with mentors on the following topics:
- Academia and Research
- AI, Machine Learning, and Data Science
- Cryptocurrency and Blockchain
- Project/Product Management
- Software Development/Engineering
- Startups, Entrepreneurship, and Business
- UI/UX Design and Graphics
Afterwards, participants were then free to continue their conversations with mentors or network with other women* in tech. While they were at it, they snacked on refreshments provided by KIND and Guayakí Yerba Mate, threw balloon darts to win Victoria’s Secret PINK swag, and got them personalized by professional calligrapher Jennidi Creative! 🖌
Phase Two: Career Development 💼
On November 21st, 2019, we hosted our cmd-f Phase Two: Career Development event, consisting of a Technical Interview workshop followed by a tech panel with female* recruiters and new grads.
The evening started off with a Technical Interview workshop presented by Beriwan Ravandi and Yvonne Li, who are both 4th year students here at UBC. They gave tips, tricks, and resources to succeed in technical interviews, while using their experiences to give up-to-date insight on how the current interview process looks like for many companies.
Afterwards, we invited recruiters and new grads to the floor to give a panel on what recruiters look for in applicants, the transition from school to full-time work, dealing with imposter syndrome, and much more. Many of these panelists were UBC alumni and it was so inspiring to see them give back to the UBC community. 💖
Coming up: Phase Three and cmd-f! 🎉
We are excited to introduce our third and final countdown event for cmd-f — Phase Three: Git Ready to Hack! Phase Three will be an evening jam-packed with workshops to help participants get ready for our upcoming hackathon, cmd-f 2020.
Hackathon Jumpstart
Totally new to the world of tech? Jumpstart your toolbox of skills at this workshop where you can build your foundation of hackathon skills, including: how to set up your devices, basic coding fundamentals and programming methodologies, as well as handy tricks for debugging and finding further resources. You’ll also get a chance to put these skills to the test and build your own mini-project!
Intro to Git
Can’t make heads or tails of Git or version control? Not to fret, just come out to Intro to Git! This workshop will introduce Git as a way of keeping your project organized while enabling collaboration — which you can guess is super important at a hackathon.
Hackathons 101
Whether cmd-f is your first hackathon or you want to improve your hackathon approach, we’ve got you covered! In Hackathons 101, we’ll be going over the ins and outs of a hackathon — from time management, getting started with your projects, demoing, and how else you can make the best out of your time at a hackathon!
Team Formation Mixer
Looking for a team to build projects at cmd-f 2020 with? LOOK NO FURTHER! Come to this event to meet your fellow hackers, network, and mingle over FREE FOOD! If you can’t make this workshop but are looking for a team, don’t worry — we’ll have a team formation channel in our event Slack as well as a team formation session at the event itself.
Applications are still open for the March 4th event! 🏃♀️
And finally, cmd-f 2020 will be taking place on March 7–8, 2020 and is looking to be bigger and better than last year! cmd-f is British Columbia’s first and largest all-female* hackathon dedicating to celebrating women* in tech and helping them explore new technologies.
Although applications are now closed for cmd-f 2020, we hope to see you at Phase Three or at next year’s cmd-f events!
See you at Phase Three and cmd-f! 👋
cmd-f 2019 by nwPlus UBC, Words by Anita Tse
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