UNC hosts a ‘women-only’ hackathon for college and high school students
Student groups at the University of North Carolina, University of Virginia and University of Maryland will hold a hackathon in Chapel Hill for more than 200 college and high school women at UNC’s computer science and journalism schools March 22-23.
Pearl Hacks was organized to build, encourage and inspire a community of young female programmers. Students are traveling from California, Illinois, New York, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, other states and across North Carolina to attend.
Poornima Vijayashanker, the founding engineer of mint.com and Femgineer, will give the keynote address about overcoming challenges in the tech industry.
Attendees will learn better ways to code from master developers at major tech and media companies through out the country. They will work in small teams to tackle programming projects, create applications and other innovations.
Final products will be submitted for judging in a competition for prizes that include all-expense paid trips to Phoenix for a large gathering of women in technology; scholarships; inventor’s kits; gift cards; and swag baskets.
Skills training will be offered in:
- programming
- web development
- using data
- mobile app development soldering and electronics
Industry insiders will give talks about:
- using technology and leveraging data to fight human trafficking
- empowering women in technology
- net neutrality
- tech in Africa
A host of major technology companies are lining up to support the event with more than $25,000 in funding and by sending mentors, coaches, equipment and prizes.
The sponsors include:
- Palantir
- Sparkfun
- Capital One
- GitHub
- Red Hat
- Epic
- Fidelity
- Femgineer
- Electric imp
- Square
- Cisco
- WillowTree
- Caktus Group
- mongoDB
- SendGrid
- Constant Contact
- Digital Ocean
- Microsoft
- Originate
- Girl Develop It
- AAUW
- Innovate @ Carolina
- The Perl Foundation
- NARS