Inspiring women to join the maker community through Hackathon participation #WomenInSTEM
Grace Metri at Intel has a nice piece up about the workshop she lead at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing event earlier this year. Via Intel Developer Zone.
On October 14th, I had the great honor of leading my first workshop at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC 2015) titled “Inspiring Women to Join the Maker Community Through Hackathon Participation”, a topic that I am very passionate about.
Why am I passionate about the topic? It is very simple!
I attended my first hackathon earlier this year and, wow, what an amazing experience. I truly had a blast especially since it busted the 5 myths that I had about hackathons. But sadly, I know many still share my preconceived notion of a hackathon and are totally missing out. As a result, given how enriching the entire hackathon experience is, it is now my mission to encourage others to take part.
The Maker community is a great inclusive community. It includes individuals from very diverse backgrounds including but not limited to metal workers, wood workers, 3D printing specialists, computer scientists, computer engineers, designers, and artists. Even though the community is diverse, there is definitely one common trait that unites them, which is the “inventor” mentality. They all want to ‘make’ things instead of simply ‘consume’ things. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?
As a woman in the tech industry, reducing the gender gap within the industry is very important to me. Why? Simply because diversity leads to greater innovation. Besides, there are at least 10 benefits of hackathon participation. So, I am compelled to do my part in encouraging more women to take advantage of these benefits. Really, there are absolutely no reasons for them not to.
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