Meet the NYU Computer Scientists who founded a hackathon for women

With the goal of creating a safe space for women in tech, two Computer Science students at NYU decided to found a hackathon for women. If this wasn’t enough, it’s also Beyonce inspired…

We sat down with co-founders Kaitlin Gu and Kira Prentice as well as organizer Dana Lee to figure how they managed to pull it off.

How did you come up with the idea?

Kira: Over winter break we decided we wanted to leave our mark on the tech community in New York. Something that we’ve seen in our members who getting started in a Computer Science program is that they say something like “I don’t think I can go to a hackathon because I don’t have enough experience.” Which is funny because hackathons are all about learning, meeting people, finding a community, gaining mentorship, so they are really open to everyone—and even the people who know a lot about programming go there to learn something new.

So we wanted to create a hackathon that’s more of an open culture that feels really casual and accessible. Part of that is just asking women to attend because the exclusionary nature of computing is rooted in sexism. Having the Beyoncé theme contributes to that; we wanted to create something for students that doesn’t make you feel like you need to know everything.

Kaitlin: It was our idea after I competed in code camp, I really enjoyed the all-women environment. I thought it was a really supportive environment where I got to make a lot of connections and lasting friendships. It was my first hackathon ever and I had never wanted to participate in one before. After that ended, I went up to Kira and I was like “we should do this”.  And it happened. It’s really amazing seeing it come together.

Apart from the all-women aspect, what makes this hackathon different?

Dana: There’s a less competitive aspect to our hackathon, which I think is good and healthy, especially for beginners. There’s less intimidation because when you take out the competitive aspect it becomes a space for you to focus on a project and build something in twelve hours.

Kira: Almost half of the people who have RSVP’d said it’s their first hackathon. We’ve had some comments like “I’m really excited for my first hackathon” so that response is really positive. It’s really what we wanted.

How did you plan a hackathon?

Dana: Lots of reaching out to companies! We had a spreadsheet of all our contacts, and we started reaching out to them individually and telling them about our hackathon. I know a professor who works at Giphy part-time, and I asked him if Giphy could sponsor the hackathon. Now they’re sponsoring the event!

Kira: We’ve had people reach out to us which is really great. I think part of the reason why is because Google signed on early and people love Google! Dana hooked that up. Also our Facebook page really blew up.

What was the biggest challenge?

Dana: It was definitely getting the ball rolling. We had to invest a lot of time into making our hackathon successful.

Kira: I think the hardest is yet to come….But the payoff is going to be worth it. Seeing the interest already, I think it’s going to reach an audience where we can really make a difference.

What are you looking forward to the most?

Dana: I’m looking forward to the hacks, and what people are going to build. As Kira said, this is the first hackathon of many of the attendees so I think that it’ll be really exciting to see what many of the attendees build. I’m also really interested to see the number of women who are interested in computer science. Because sometimes it can feel less like the “only girl in the room.” Since Flawless Hacks is an all-women’s space it will be great to see more diversity in Computer Science to break the stereotypes in the field.

Kira: Also just seeing who comes out. We’re seeing people register who go to school in Canada, Massachusetts, there’s a couple of people from Cal Tech. We also have some really awesome mentors and engineers from New York and San Francisco who are going to  be there on the day to help people out. So I’m really excited to see those connections being made.

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