#HackTheGap2016

What

Hack the Gap is a two-day hackathon aimed at creating a high-energy weekend where women from all backgrounds and experience levels can enjoy an accessible, approachable, positive experience.

Why

To have fun, connect with others and challenge yourself to build a weekend project with a team. Hack the Gap is a place for women. A safe place to hack and explore and build without the headwinds of inherent bias and sexisim in tech.

WHO

Programmers! But if you don't code, that's cool, each team needs idea people, designers, data analysts, and testers, too. This event is for women and non-binary individuals who are interested in working together on a weekend project. If you're not sure if this event is for you? Get in touch with us.

WHere

Clockwork  

1501 East Hennepin Avenue

Minneapolis, MN 55414

Parking info can be found here.

Schedule

Sunday, May 15th

7:45 AM: Doors open for breakfast

12 PM: Lunch

1:30 PM: Doors open for Demo Event

2 PM: Demos and Award Ceremony

5 PM: Wrap up

Saturday, May 14th

7:30 AM: Doors open for breakfast

8 AM: Kickoff, pitches and team formation

12 PM: Lunch

3 PM: Snack

5 PM: Dinner

8 PM: Snack

10 PM: Everyone goes home to sleep

Volunteer & mentor schedules will be posted closer to the event.

 

Mentors


Caroline Karanja

@Caroline_Karanj

Caroline is a freelance developer and designer. She's also the founder of 26 Letters, facilitating diversity and inclusion through consulting and e-learning solutions.


James Coughlin

@JamesSCoughlin

I am a Hardware Designer / Ikea Expert / Bringer of Doughnuts at Punch Through. If I'm not at work, you can probably find me in a canoe on one of Minnesota's many lakes.


Casie Siekman

@CassandraDanger

Casie attended the Prime Digital Academy bootcamp in 2015. She specializes in the MEAN stack and loves anything related to Javascript. In addition to continuing to learn the nuances of the MEAN stack, she is also interested in the Internet of Things and hopes to develop some mad Node.js skills to help her create something super cool. She is now working at Prime Digital Academy as an Associate Software Engineer and a Teacher's Assistant.


Gareth Harcombe-Minson

Software, DevOps Engineer at Gravie, a healthcare startup. Always looking for the next problem to solve and challenge to face!


Eryn O'Neil

@eryno

Eryn is a PHP developer, technical lead, and consultant. Formerly at Clockwork, she now helps teams and agencies build better software (and helps those agencies build better teams). When she's not making software, Eryn is a local blues dance instructor and national conference speaker.


Matt Decuir

@experimatt

A transplant from Seattle, Matt is the Co-founder of OMG Transit, a real-time transit app which started at a local hackathon in June 2013. His background is in data analysis, but he's found that product management and software development play more to his strengths. He currently works for Kidizen, a mobile marketplace for buying and selling pre-loved kidstuff.


Anna Wise

Hi, I'm Anna. I love aligning the dots between what's needed, what's possible, and what's valuable! And people. Discovering their talents is an endless source of wonder.


Amanda LaGrange

@GracieLooToday

After 6 years with General Mills in Corporate Finance, Amanda joined Tech Dump as the Director of Marketing in 2013. The MSPBJ recognized her as a 2014 Top 50 Women in Business, and she stepped into the CEO position in 2015. She continues to grow Tech Dump’s social and environmental impact with the 2016 launch of Tech Discounts.


Alex Ryan

I've held my entire career in technology, from developer and other tech roles to managing technology teams, people and programs. Regular volunteer supporting tech entrepreneurs and women technology initiatives. Founder of technology strategy and management consulting firm, Bitmatter.  Board member and long-time volunteer with minne* supporting our tech community with events MinneBar and MinneDemo. Excited to be a mentor here again this year!


Uriah Blatherwick

Web developer and small business owner


Christopher Matthew Jensen

Software strategist with 8+ years of industry experience. Currently a Solutions Architect at The Nerdery. Specialties in user research, UX design, content strategy and development roadmapping.


John Pawlenty

Senior User Experience designer at the Nerdery. I get working with passionate individuals on challenging problems.

The Judging Panel


MEGHAN WILKER

@irishgirl

Meghan is the COO at Clockwork. She’s the co-author of Interactive Project Management: Pixels, People, and Process (New Riders 2012), was named a “Woman to Watch” by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, and was a 2016 Minnesota Business Journal (Real) Power 50 award winner. She serves on three local boards: GiveMN, Bollywood Dance Scene, and Still Kickin’. As one of the dynamic duo known as the Geek Girls Guide, she is a speaker, writer, and podcaster who loves demystifying technology for non-technical people. She's a frequent contributor to the internet, and a frequently awkward Bollywood dancer.


THOMPSON ADERINKOMI

@ThompsonAder

Thompson is the co-founder and CEO of RetraceHealth, a new model for primary care medicine. Governor Mark Dayton appointed Thompson to MNsure, the MN Health Insurance Exchange Board of Directors, in April 2013. In June 2014 Thompson was appointed by the MN Commissioner of Health to the legislatively created All Payer Claims Data work group to create policy to reform healthcare price transparency in Minnesota. Thompson also co-founded Healthcare.mn, the Twin Cities premier organization for healthcare entrepreneurs, which has grown in two years to over 1,000 members. Thompson has a B.S. in Economics from the University of Minnesota; an M.S. in Statistics; and an MBA from the Carlson School of Management.


LONA DALLESSANDRO

@lonampls

Lona's been leading companies in the Internet and telecom industries for 15 years. Currently, she directs all business development activities for Autodesk IoT products where she is focused on building strategic relationships throughout the IoT ecosystem, including hardware, connectivity technologies and software integrations. She holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a BS in Biological Science from Penn State University.


JASMINE RUSSELL

@JasMRussell

Jasmine has 8 years of experience in market research and digital analytics across markets of: retail, consumer products, healthcare, service and technology industries. From her analytic focus, she brings a knowledge base of optimizing market strategy--guiding broad concepts into strategic business action. Outside of her data and technology involvement, Jasmine holds a deep passion for women empowerment, community projects/events, cupcakes, yoga and minimalism.


prize categories

first place

iPad 2 Mini 16GB

&

a 1 year subscription to Frontend Masters

 
 

third place

Light Blue Bean

Second Place

Fitbit Alta


Intel Code for good

$100

Target prize

Prizes throughout the weekend.


COMPETITION RULES

  • When demoing your project, you’ll need to show your technology live, even if there are stubbed out parts of your application. Do not use PowerPoint or PDFs.

  • Team size can range from 2 to 5 people. Prize categories won’t have more than five prizes for the winning team. Teams with less than two people won’t be able to compete, although they can still attend the event.

  • The project hack must be built at the event, not prior to the event.

  • All teams retain full ownership of what they created during the hackathon. Hack the Gap claims no rights to any of the ideas.

  • There will be no alcohol served at the event.

  • You must read and adhere to the code of conduct.

  • That’s it. Those are the rules.

 

JUDGING CRITERIA

The weekend hacks will be judged by the innovation of the idea and problem solution; the technical impressiveness; and the impact of the idea of community, the market or the end users. No one of these categories will have more weight than another.

There will be a panel of four judges. Each judge will rate the team presentation of the project with a 1 through 5 for each of the categories: innovation, technical impressiveness, and impact. The total score of each team will be tallied up and the four judges will decide which team takes first, second and third prize.

The Intel Prize will be decided and awarded by the Hack the Gap organizers. The Target prizes will be random chance throughout the weekend for all of the hackers.

THANK YOU TO OUR 2016 SPONSORS

Change Agent

 
 

Community Connectors

 
 

Bridge Builders

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Friends of Hack the Gap

Kristine Adams

Groveland Software, Inc.

Tech Discounts

COCO Coworking

 

Kristina Durivage

Naomi Reeves

Brad Armstrong

Laura Andersen

Intel Code For Good

 

Want your logo featured here?

Contact us for more info on sponsoring.