Girl Develop It Presents - First All-Female Hackathon!
First off I figured I would give you a definition of what a Hackathon is:
A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects.
Click on the picture above to see the official page from #GDIHacks15.
So here is what I saw over the 12 hour marathon coding event, with pictures and my view on the whole day, so here we go!
First of all, before we get to the event itself, It is a first of its kind in our region, all female 12 Hour Hackathon, and the call was to all women of all levels of skills from beginner to advanced. The goal was to build a new website framework for a local minority or women owned businesses. Well over 50 women answered the call and 9 local businesses were given a website makeover you won't believe in just 12 hours!!!!
So I could do a blog on the #43North / Z80 space but that's not what we are talking about here, but let me tell you, that this event could not be held without the use of their excellent space!
I arrived around 8:30 a.m. and I brought my 10 year daughter, Emma. She took several of these photos and she had a wonderful time.
The event kickoff time was 9:00 a.m.
Now, The space was setup with 10 tables with labels depicting team numbers and many of the participants were already conversing and setting up for the day.
There was a very easy check in station as you walked in and just outside was an area of breakfast from Paula's donuts!
Great swag from hats to stickers to shirts buttons and more!
The place filled up quickly before 9:00 and light music was playing while people settled in. As Infotech was a sponsor I was lucky to have the opportunity to be apart of this great event. I have put on many different events in my lifetime and I can tell you that this was top notch.
Here I am speaking with Sabina Ramsey who was the lunchtime Keynote speaker she is the owner of Insight International and with her were a couple of the organizers Brittney and Sabrina.
So at 9:00 a.m. Lena Levine Director of GDI Buffalo explained the rules of the day. Each of the 10 teams would be broken up into several components and would be assigned a random company to start working on. The components were Frontend Developer, Backend Developer, UX/UI Designer, Marketing Specialist and the Business component.
The Platinum Sponsor was AT&T and this event showcased the partnership that they have with local organizations and how willing they are to help foster growth in our community. Thank you Ben Roberts and Kevin Hanna for your support!
For Emma this was also a first of its kind and she smiled and enjoyed herself and the main reason was because of all the love and happiness that was shared with her throughout the day. Every single person she met was engaging, helpful, friendly, kind and courteous and it made her feel great! I cannot tell you how happy she was and on top of it she made it on the twitter feed for #GDIHacks15 as you can see! Lots of Love!!
Emma was made an honorary designer for the day!
The 9 business represented were introduced and gave a brief summary of their company. After that the GDI Team broke up everyone and connected them with their prospective client for the day. And then they started HACKING!
Media coverage was great and I am glad to see that there was a lot of press, also #GDIHacks15 was a top 10 trend on Twitter in Buffalo!
During lunch Sabina Ramsey had 2 dancers do a wonderful performance before her inspirational speech. She covered her story of where she came from and how she learned to succeed. She also showed her formula to success and you could tell her message was well received. Well done Sabina!
Follow her on Twitter and her company Insight International USA and #ShareAnInsight
After lunch Emma and I had to run, but before we did I got to try a cool VR Goggle using a neat box ocular and a smartphone. I thought this was the coolest thing and I am going to get one, HERE
I came back around 7:00 p.m. and the first thing I wanted to do is meet the judges of the Hackathon, Marnie LaVigne, Katie Krawczyk, Sabina Ramsey and Barbara Ann Sherman I did miss the dinner which was catered by Lloyd's Tacos and the Keynote was Dr. Rohini Srihari.
Last minutes update, changes and fixes to make each project complete and you could tell that all teams had worked hard and put in a solid effort. In some cases the owners didn't see the site yet so it would be a big reveal to them as well as the audience.
So at 8:00 p.m. the call to end all work, and the presentations began. There were 9 teams but there was not a Team#6 so when you see the reviews below, keep that in mind. I also took 1 or 2 photos only but in all cases the sites were very well done and in most cases the clients were thrilled with the results.
Team#1 was Absynnia – an Ethopian restaurant website built on Static HTML for showing menus, photos of the great dishes and coming soon, events. The new site made me want to go and try the food it looked so good!
Team# 2 – America Tea Experience – The website was a complete makeover, the previous site looked dated and needed a new look. It was not meant to be a consumer retail site but to connect the tea purveyors – teapot makers tea sets and more. They described it as a Match.com for Tea. New Logo along with a strong social media experience! Custom made Wordpress theme, with forms to build a directory.
Team# 3 = Creative Corner for Kids! Easy site to use for kids and that was the goal. Wordpress site, done by only 2 students and it was their first time doing this. Company is still developing their business so they had only a few items to setup as examples. Built a customer portal and login page with a wish list and it would remember you as a customer. This was one of my favorites as the team was only 2 students trying this for the first time, and they did fantastic!
Team# 4
Team# 5 – Orchard Community Initiative – Fruit belt community organization. The organization is the source of information in their community like a local google for answering questions on what offerings, assistance and events that are happening in the community. Worpress site and they built a form to get information to build on grants and get more people registered and this site will eliminate the need for some paper and automate the process.
Team#7 – Groom Service Beauty and Dry Bar- Major overhaul of the site. Amazing site rebuild with the ability to book a look after viewing what you want to look like with models images of hair and makeup with one button "book the look!" Events page for Bridesmaids and more events to come. Great about page. The used WIX to build which is a product I have used myself!
Team#8 – Promo U Videography! Her life is videography and uploading videos was #1. The site was redesigned with a simple page layout with criteria that met the clients need. The homepage was built based on the clients feelings on what was needed. Then the client had picked a theme which helped the group which they used sketches to complete the site layout. They built in categories for videos and that helped with search ability and to tie social media to drive traffic back to the site. Responsively built! Great overhaul.
Team #9 – Volunteer Lawyers Project – User friendly and easy to read info for both users and lawyers. A simple site that anyone could easily update with minimal training. Content details were built by the client. They built a custom lawyer volunteer portal to make it an easy way to sign in and pick volunteer dates. A calendar system was built and attorneys can pick the day and then if forwards to an admin to verify and this automated a lot of what was needed. Responsive website and well done.
Team#10 = Jose L Fuentes Artist- This client came with no branding, logo, or website so this was a full on marketing build, also no server or domain. The site was built on Wordpress with e-commerce to purchase the artists work. They built everything from scratch with a gallery of the artists work, a very details About page and they even a blog to help build the artists momentum online! This was truly something from nothing. Great job!
Judging commences! I didn't envy our judges as there were so many good things about each of the teams that it would be very hard not to award all of them!
Winners!!!
Best Mobile Responsive Website
Team #9 - Volunteer Lawyer Project
Team #7 - Groom Service Beauty and Dry Bar
Team# 10 - Jose L Fuentes Artist
Team#2 American Tea Experience
Consolation prize
Team #3 - Creative Corner for Kids!
Team #3 - Creative Corner for Kids!
3rd Place Team - Groom Service Beauty and Dry Bar
1st Place Team - American Tea Experience
The Girl Develop It - Hackathon Team
After a day of competition you would think all would be weary but right at the end, someone found out that one of the developers, Crystal, was having her Birthday so this happened!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbWkS5YlOnM View it here if the video doesn't play for you here! |
This was a great day indeed. I hope this is not the first and then last of its kind as this was a perfect day for many people. And even though there were only a few winning teams, everyone was better for the experience, and the clients walked away with a great online presence to help grow their business. You can say it was a WIN/WIN for all!
Thanks for reading!!!
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