Hackathon: A playground just for technocrats?
My team just won the first prize of Sun* Startups challenge in Angelhack Hackathon 2019 and not gonna lie, it was one the most astounding moments in my entire life. This is the second time I took part in a hackathon ( the first one was SheCodes Hackathon 2018 — while I was struggling with my broken HTML and CSS skills ) as an entrepreneur: yes you heard it right, not a frontend or backend or ios/ android developer and definitely not a full stack one. Many people always deem that hackathons ( a combination of “ hack “ and “ marathon “ where participants gather together as a team to transform ideas into reality by creating functioning products using technology in a short period of time ) are just competitions exclusively established for coders, programmers, developers or tech experts; both hackathons I’ve joined gave me a totally different outlook: of course it will be better if you know some programming languages such as Javascript or Python but it doesn’t mean there is no chance for designers or business analysts to start formulating a team.
The journey in Angelhack Hackathon is both thrilling and exhausting at the same time: never did I think that some market researches I did and read years ago could become materials for an outstanding startup idea one day. A day before the event our team ( with one coder, one designer, two entrepreneurs ) was even up to 2 am just to discuss and decide which idea we would choose to demonstrate because my other teammate was keen on IBM challenge, not AWS or Sun* Startups challenge ( the challenges we agree to do later on ) In two-day event, I only slept 3 hours while my comrades only slept 1: we had to learn so many things and the time was very limited so we were tremendously driven crazy ( big thanks to anh Hưng Lê and mentor team for suggesting and teaching us lol ) In contradicting to the sleeping session, we ate a lot ( 10 meals and great Pablo cheese tarts are enough for reimbursement :D ) The rule here is very simple: you have 2 minutes to present your kickass innovation and persuade strangers to give you money for funding project or else you go home with a full stomach and a lot of new friends and gifts ( or maybe a new boyfriend who knows ? ) . Coding is very important, but you also have to have the skills to sell your products and convince investors that they can earn more profit by purchasing it.
Angelhack did bring hackathon to a new level: not only did I gain knowledge and connections ( duh, networking has always been an important part of any events ) but I was also reminded of humanity and morality: every product was made to solve humanity’s “ pain point “ problems, to make this world a better place and there was also a challenge about recovering consequences after disasters. It shows us that even in a competition, our society is developing by lifting each other up, not bringing each other down.
As passionate as I am talking about the one of a kind experience in chị Jasmine’s event where my thirst for accomplishments was fulfilled and my perspective was widened, I also have a burning fire for equal human rights and I was shocked by the statistics: Women’s under-representation in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a worldwide issue: only 14% of women entering higher education choose science-related fields, compared to 39% of men among the OECD countries in 2012, while in the USA only 0.4% of high-school girls choose computer science in 2016. That's why this year I come back as the leader of the organizing team of SheCodes Hackathon, not just an attendant: From my point of view, hackathon or so-called codefest/ devfest is such an amazing place for innovators to learn from each other and I want to shorten the gender gap in every aspect in life so why not combine both?
To all my female fellas who are still hesitating, wondering if they can join or not: hackathons welcome people from different backgrounds so don’t be shy, be a part in the journey of developing a community of women who are tech-savvy supporting each other and sharing knowledge. We are currently opening application form for our annual hackathon, check out the link: http://hackathon.shecodesvn.tech/?fbclid=IwAR3wStSRyxRZjRv57xsx3O7HF-qJu_hSUyopgFuMV0blmBj0bi1KwqqM50U
