rss-bridge 2013-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Berlin Geekettes All-Women Hackathon Roundup

Late last year, six women crowded in to a Mitte cafe booth and
listened to Berlin Geekettes founder Jess Erickson share her idea:
Berlin’s first all-women hackathon. With SoundCloud’s Amelie Anglade
the then newly-appointed the Berlin Geekettes Tech Ambassador, we
agreed that it was a great idea to produce the hackathon as a
partnership between the Geekettes and the women developers of
SoundCloud. Fast forward to the first weekend of March, when the vision became
reality: after 24 hours of hacking, 80 women demoed 29 projects across
a range of different platforms, from a belt transformed into a game
controller to an app aimed to help toddlers learn to do everyday
tasks.

Berlin Geekettes All-Women Hackathon Roundup

April 25th, 2013 by Amelie Anglade, Tiffany Conroy, Emily Green, Duana Stanley

[Duana discussing APIs]

Fast forward to the first weekend of March, when the vision became
reality: after 24 hours of hacking, 80 women demoed 29 projects across
a range of different platforms, from a belt transformed into a game
controller to an app aimed to help toddlers learn to do everyday
tasks.

Hackathon with a twist

This hackathon invited all types of projects: web, iOS, Android,
hardware, and so on. And the hackers rose to the challenge. One women
even turned her belt into a game controller, and demo’d it by standing
on a chair and playing Tetris by tapping her fingers on what she
dubbed
The WonderBelt.

Achievement of a strong collaborative energy was an important part of
what we set out to do. With over 120 applications, we accepted as many
women as we could possibly fit into the generous space provided free
of charge by Deutsche Telekom, complete with internet infrastructure
and an onsite technician. In addition to API representatives, we asked
attendees to identify themselves as ”domain experts” if they were
willing to offer help and answer questions. We wanted to make the
event also appealing to new programmers, as well as non-programmers
such as designers and people with product ideas. We partnered with
OpenTech School to host a
prep-school training session beforehand, with a presentation by
SoundCloud’s very own Duana Stanley. The result? A wide range of women
with different backgrounds and experience levels working together.

And the Berlin Geekettes wanted to create a fun, healthy atmosphere,
which is why we had a yoga teacher leading relaxation exercise classes
and fresh organic meals (shout out to the amazing chefs!). Etsy joined
the fun by providing a craft corner with instructions and materials
for making plush birds. Many hackers took a break for a mental
refresh, with stretching and stitching.

Lots of actually working demos!

We got the usual API mash-ups, such as
HomeThingy
which suggests apartments on ImmobilienScout24 based on your Etsy
purchase history,
Eye-MOO
which sends your EyeEM photos to be printed as postcards, and
Mood Swings
which serves music from SoundCloud and images from Tumblr to suit your
mood.

There were not one but three mash-ups using the SoundCloud and
Readmill APIs, combining books and sounds in various ways:
Soundmill
(share highlights from your SoundCloud audiobooks!),
BOOKBEAT
(which also one the Best Student Project prize), and our staff pick
GetUp-ReadUp
(a noisy alarm clock that uses book trivia to make you feel alert).

More than one team built apps aimed at small children, including the
overall winner:
Monkey See, Monkey Do
helps your toddler understand daily routines using simple
pictures. The team included an illustrator who made adorable drawings
of a monkey brushing its teeth, having a snack, and other toddler
activities.

More, please

Dive in to the whole list of projects
list of submitted projects
on the hackathon’s official wiki. We were blown away by the quality of
the presentations from so many first-time hackathon-attendees!

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