In celebration of Women’s Month, under the theme #GenerationEquality: Realising Women’s Rights for an Equal Future, GirlCode hosted its ninth annual hackathon, which is the largest all-female hackathon in South Africa.
The ninth annual GirlCode Hackathon kicked-off across three provinces: Durban Johannesburg and Cape Town, with a special welcome from CEO, Zandile Mkwanazi.
The hackathon then started with some words of inspiration from prominent women in tech. Over the next 30 hours, 328 participants built 66 technology solutions aimed at addressing #GenerationEquality!
The weekend was followed by non-stop coding, debugging, fun, food and beverages to keep the students active with amazing spot prizes worth over R50, 000 given throughout the weekend on social media.
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These included vouchers from Saratoga, Entelect, Superbalist, Mr D, TakeAlot, three brand-new Dell laptops sponsored by Dotcom Software Projects, and six headphones sponsored by the TakeAlot Group.
The first prize winners across all cities walked away with laptops, and R1, 000 TakeAlot
vouchers. The second prize winners walked away with tablets and R500 TakeAlot vouchers, and the third prize winners walked away with headphones and R250 TakeAlot vouchers.
The overall hackathon winners between the three cities were announced live on the GirlCode Instagram page. The team consisted of Seipati Tshabalala, Denise Kamanga, Charlo Jacobs and Tracy Lethoko, who walked away with an additional R60, 000 cash prize.
The success of the hackathon reflects the ever-increasing dedication and enthusiasm of young women, who want to be equal contributors to society and in particular, the tech industry.
“I thought this was a unique way to tackle a problem that has kept many girls from school and has the scope to scale nationally with ordinary citizens being able to fulfil requests without necessarily exposing these young girls in need. I particularly loved the fact that the whole process is anonymous. What we saw this weekend was real practical solutions with the potential for making a huge impact in society and the lives of many girls and women,” said Mkwanazi.
Source: https://northcoastrisingsun.co.za/125568/girlcodehack-young-women-participate-in-30-hours-of-coding/