My Experience at My First Hackathon
I’ve gone to several Developer Conferences, but this has been the first Hackathon I’ve been to. I’ve heard about them from friends, but never had the chance to experience it for myself. Thanks to RingCentral I was able to attend this event and got to be at the booth to speak to all the awesome attendees. They had sessions just like a conference, but the key focus for most of the attendees was creating apps for the competition. Spectra Hackathon was focused on women and nonbinary developers to encourage diversity.
When first arriving the team was greeted by the awesome staff that was running the event — they made sure to show us our booth and gave us swag (cute socks and a crop top). It started with an awesome keynote by Ritu Mukherjee — in which she shared her experience as a woman in tech. She answered questions that several of the attendees had and gave advice as well. Here is one of the questions that an attendee asked about “Tips for being a woman of color in tech” and the answer that Ritu gave (See video below).
When time ran out Ritu made sure the attendees knew that if anyone had questions they could speak to her afterwards. She stood near the snack room to make herself easily accessible to any attendee's that wanted to ask questions.
We had attendees of different age ranges come up asking not just about what RingCentral does, but about advice on how they can improve their skills (too which of course the first thing that popped into my mind was Women Who Code and Girls Who Code). It was exciting to talk to so many young developers that are just getting started and getting to encourage them and give advice.
One set I spoke to I remember giving the advice “No matter how far along you get - you will always use Google”.
Not too long ago when I decided I wanted to start learning to code I would get stuck and I would feel extremely frustrated, as well as that I can’t do this and that I’m not any good. Luckily, I have people in my life that encouraged me to go to developer conferences and speak to people there — which included many of the speakers. When I was able to approach a speaker/ people at the booth and say “Hey — I’m just getting started and just want to know how did you memorize everything?”. Most of them gave me the same advice “I still have to use Google to figure out how to do things sometimes — as well as reaching out to the community for help.”
So I wanted to convey to these young developers that — no matter what, they can do this and to not be afraid to Google the things they didn’t know. Being able to encourage them was the highlight of the hackathon for me. I wasn’t able to attend any of the sessions — well except the one that I was presenting at.
This was my first time doing a presentation not just for RingCentral, but in general in the developer world. This is where imposter syndrome kicks in — I was nervous to present. This was a subject I not only have written an article about, but I run the RingCentral Game Changers program on a day to day basis — so I know it really well you could say.
In my session I wanted to introduce them to our Game Changers program and show them how it can help them continue to grow their developer skills, and not just at the hackathon. They can continue to utilize it as a resource to grow their skills and to have a community to learn on.
It was great to see them all so excited to be creating their apps and learning from each other. I want to say a big thank you to the Spectra Organizers for promoting this event to increase diversity and to help encourage developers to grow. If you get the chance to participate in a hackathon or a conference make sure to do so and let developers know you understand their pain and be encouraging.
After the session it was time to go back to the booth and chat with more developers. They were all for the most part busily working away on their apps. But, one team wasn’t feeling confident in their app and Mike and I had the chance to visit with them and provide some encouragement. I wanted to make sure they knew that whatever they created in that day is great — especially considering the time constraint. Plus this is something they can take with them and work on further after the hackathon. It was a 12 hour day by the time we got to wrap up, which is super exhausting, but worth it when you see the passion and are able to play a small role in encouraging young developers.
My personal goal when I attend an event is to be encouraging to others because I know what imposter syndrome is like or the feeling of thinking you can’t do it (especially when people tell you that).
I think it’s important for all of us in tech to go and support events like these — encouraging young developers to pursue their dreams and letting them know it’s okay to not know everything or have failures in the process.
