The Acorn Aspirations Hackathon

In celebration of International Women's Day, Acorn Aspirations, an EdTech social enterprise aimed at fostering entrepreneurship with young people aged 11-19, launched a 2-day Hackathon to help bring together bright young girls with female coders and business mentors. In recent years, tech companies have increased the number of total women working in tech. However, there is still a clear gap in the number of women who work in technical roles. One of the best ways to build this pipeline of female technical talent is to educate and inspire girls at a young age. The Acorn Aspirations Hackathon kicked off the event with a Tedx-style talk on March 8th, International Women’s Day, with an impressive line-up of speakers representing all aspects of women in tech. From founders and coders, from volunteers to civil servants, each of these women reflected on their role in tech and gave advice to the audience about how to succeed in the exciting and challenging tech environment. Some girls in attendance even signed up for the Hackathon after they heard these inspirational talks.Prior to founding Acorn Aspirations, Elena Sinel worked in international development and helped to build communities of entrepreneurs in Uzbekistan, the Balkans, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. Her experience working in the development field made her keenly aware of the power of the community over the success of an individual. “You cannot be what you cannot see”, says Sinel. Indeed, one of the key takeaways from the talks was the importance of mentors and role models to the success of women.  When it comes to mentorship, Nancy Fechnay, a Partner at Flight VC, and the Interim Director of TechStars London explains, “[Mentors and advisors]...are people who I built a relationship with, who was about 15-20 years older than I was,  and who wanted to see me succeed as an individual.”Another major takeaway from the talks was the importance of lifelong learning. “Your career is a journey, not a destination... I learn so much every day. Not just by learning-by-doing, but actively learning something that I didn’t know” urges Bethany Colby, the Founder and CEO of Technology Will Save Us. Coding and entrepreneurship are two important skillsets that are commonly overlooked in the formal education system. As such, they are often shrouded in mystery and complexity. However, in this digital world, there will be less and less of a divide between the technology sector and other sectors. Tech has now become integrated into every industry and will continue to play a pivotal role in tomorrow’s economy.The gender gap between male and female technologists varies between countries. Catherine Nakka, a Developer at Lenio explains, “ I am from India. I studied computer science there and did my engineering there. I worked with General Electrics to start with and that’s how I got into the industry.” Nakka continues, “ When I applied for my first job [at GE], there were 50,000 people who were invited to a 2 day interview and 42 of us were selected. 18 of them were women so almost 50%. That’s why I’m trying to understand why it is that women are a lot less here in terms of developers.” Nakka was one of the technical mentors at the two-day hackathon and helped her team, Chorify, to win one of the Commercial Awards at the Hackathon.Learning to code and learning to sell your technical product go hand-in-hand. Through Acorn Aspirations’ Hackathon, girls learned both technical skills to be able to create a product and business acumen to be able to market and sell their product. Both skills are equally as valuable and are a part of the judging criteria during the hackathon. The technical and business mentors at the hackathon nurtured these young talents and created a safe and encouraging environment for the girls to develop their ideas. Hands-on workshops in ideation, coding, and pitching further helped the girls to grow confident in their abilities to create and sell their products.Investors and potential employers have also taken a keen interest in these girls. The Twilio Award, for example, was given to a business created during the hackathon which best utilizes Twilio’s cloud communication API. The girls behind Aftermaths, were invited to go visit the Twilio London office to pitch their idea. The three winners of the Commercial Award, Chorify, Grammar, and Study Budy, were invited to pitch their ideas in front of real investors at an event in September. The commercial viability comes from the girls having an in-depth understanding of their target market. Victoria Sinel, one of the girls in the Chorify Team explains, “everybody hates chores but we all have to do them. We want to make an app that can help kids and parents build better relationships.” Alien Hack, the team that won the Technology Award, was invited to go on a tour and have lunch at the Google offices in London. Judge Bindi Karea, formerly of Microsoft Ventures and Sillicon Valley Bank, exclaims, “I was really inspired by what they built over the period of the weekend. I am really inspired and excited that we have got these young ladies really wanting to look into technology.”Having experienced the Acorn Hackathon event, the girls have gain invaluable confidence in their ability to be active creators and not just passive consumers of technological products. The Acorn Aspirations Hackathon fostered an ecosystem of mentorship and learning. Karea continues, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it because you absolutely can. These girls are living, breathing evidence of it.” Parents of this weekend also saw a noticeable change in their children. “She is really into games. She’s really enjoyed the hackathon. She came home last night and couldn’t stop talking about it” says the mother of a 12 year old participant. Her daughter quickly adds, “My favourite part of the weekend was learning HTML! I did not know how to code before and it’s just so fun! I’m going to come to more hackathons!”Lean more about Acorn Aspirations!Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AcornAspirations.org/Twitter: @AcornAspirationsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/acorn-aspirationsYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoIM5yU7FVle9JqgfeygudgWebsite: acornaspirations.co.uk