{Event} Berlin women's hackathon wants to break down prejudices: good ideas instead of women's quota

Hacker marathons are “in”. In Berlin recently, for the second time, there was one for Women instead of. Does a hackathon like this really help women in a male-dominated world Technology-Industry to promote?

Promote women in the technology industry

Hackathons seem to be in vogue right now: Google has over 4 million search results for them Term, in the current issue of the Medium magazine, which is otherwise more inclined towards the conventional press landscape, there is a multi-page report on the subject and several have recently taken place in Germany's self-proclaimed IT capital Berlin. Only the German-language Wikipedia is still missing an entry for the term - unlike in Azerbaijani, French or Danish. Well, maybe the Germans are not that far yet...

An event by the Berlin Geekettes (feminine for “geek” = technology friend), which I recently attended in Berlin, gives hope for something else. The Geekettes are an association of young, successful technology specialists. You want to promote women in the male-dominated technology industry to increase diversity and innovation - a Commitment, for which they were recently awarded by the EU Commission for the Digital Impact Award were nominated.

115 hackers from 10 countries

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At the “All Women Hackathon” that will take place from October 11th to 13th in the Coca-Cola-Zentrale in Berlin, 115 programmers, developers and IT designers from ten countries met and developed innovative IT solutions alone or in teams.Solutionsthat make everyday life easier. It was the largest event of this kind in Germany to date.

Coca Cola not only provided the facilities but also the food the drinks - and the main prize: A trip to the global headquarters of Coca-Cola in Atlanta for the exchange of experiences with top managers.

What is a hackathon?

Hackathon is short for hacker marathon - and that's exactly it: That Objective is holding out until that Projects is done. On the first day there were introductions to basic IT topics, on Saturday morning things got down to business: the participants presented their projects, the groups got together – and then the hacking continued for over 24 hours.

While the two of them drove home for a few hours to sleep, 12 participants stayed the same. Sunday afternoon around 14.30 clock was then delivery and then the winners were chosen. A total of seven prizes were awarded to the sponsors.

The participants: Different goals and experiences

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The different ones were exciting qualifications and objectives of the participants: Some studieren nor computer science, others were already working for established ones Companys like Xing. Still others practice programming primarily as a hobby and wanted to use the network and the experience of the other participants in order to establish themselves more professionally.

And while some just their ideas had presented to see what would become of it, others came up with very concrete ones Business-ideas. The 27 ideas that were presented were correspondingly broad.

Apps for career success

The “Rent a Rolemodel” project by Hamburg’s Geekettes, for example, was interesting from a professional point of view: women need role models in technical professions. But they are difficult to find, for example from teachers. Role models and seekers are networked via Rent-a-Rolemodel. Teachers can search for a suitable role model on a special platform using various search terms, for example by region or focus of work. You get the Xing contact data (even if you are not a member there yourself) and can directly contact the model in Contact step.

Another fun idea was the “Be a horse” app by Karolina Skalska (26) and Joanna Vogt (29) from Wroclaw. Women tend to be insecure much more than men. They then seek the advice of friends. But sometimes it is better if the advisor comes from outside. And sometimes it doesn't take hours of discussion, just a word of encouragement. For example “Be a horse! Just walk and don't look around." The idea: A woman feels, for example, in front of you job interview, stressed. She reports to be-a-horse, is networked with other women and gets a sentence that fits her situation. Then she can “gallop through” and achieve her goals.

Great ideas - but women make women's issues again

Has won one Team from Hamburg, Munich and Berlin: Your app “Period Quest” aims to educate girls in developing countries about menstruation. For example, 48 percent of girls in Iran consider menstruation to be an illness.

In view of such typical women's apps, however, I am a little ambivalent: Of course, menstruation education is good and important for developing countries and I also find the basic idea of ​​the other projects useful. But what is striking once again: Intelligent, creative women “only” do women’s issues. Important on the one hand, who else should tackle such issues if not we women ourselves?

Women must be taken seriously

On the other hand, it is unfortunately often the case that women maneuver themselves into social insignificance by occupying classic women's issues. into projects investthat less Money bring. As a result, they are taken less seriously. This is evident in many areas of our society Society.

The goal of promoting women in the male-dominated technology industry is great, but I doubt whether a topic like menstruation will succeed in convincing men who don't really know what to do with it and are taken seriously. You have to take a look at the comments at Heise – for sure not always to be taken seriously, but Heise is THE medium par excellence in the IT industry.

Company: Promote diversity, promote women

During the course of the event, I talked with Nadine Ziese, Personnel Director of Coca-Cola Germany, on the topic of women's affairs. This is precisely the reason why the 32-year-old is taking part in the Geekettes event: to promote diversity and innovative ideas, and to promote women in particular.

Ziese himself does not believe in the quota for women, but believes that, for example, family-friendly working time models need to promote a less masculine culture in companies: “Women have a different view of things and strengthen each other as role models. So if more women come to management positions, others will follow suit, ”Ziese is convinced.

Networking instead of women's quota

It is therefore important to her that women network and train their skills. And this conviction was also noticeable in her personal commitment to the young women: Ziese was not only present throughout the weekend, she also took care of all sorts of things herself: "Some participants had ideas that were simply too big or too generally for such a hackathon. Since we have then in personal Conversation worked out the quintessence,” the Human Resources director tells me before she runs away for a moment because the beamer is for the Presentation doesn't want to start. Sympathetic and authentic.

After all, the company lives the topic of "women in management positions" itself: Four out of nine members of the management board are women. There are parents' offices with play areas for the children and Employees can themselves decidewhether they im Office or want to work from home. And with its global 5by20 initiative, Coca-Cola wants to empower women, especially in developing countries: by 2020, Coca-Cola wants to support five million women on their way to economic independence.

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