Caroline Karanja

Caroline Karanja is a designer, developer and cultural architect. She is the founder of 26 Letters, a SaaS e-learning solution that helps companies understand and incorporate, diversity and inclusion. Her deep experience working with engineers to build products in the technology space gives Caroline a unique perspective that has helped define and refine 26 Letters’ approach.

Jeff Lin

Jeff founded Bust Out Solutions in 2005 with the vision of assembling a team of highly-talented individuals who share his love of technology and his passion for design. The Bust Out team has also created a payment management platform called Pearl which launched as a separate company in 2016. Jeff has a degree in molecular biology, a background in software engineering, and he also spends time chasing his three young children around.

Shanita John

Currently, a Product Manager at Data Curation Experts, Shanita John joined this small, agile team of open-source software developers with a decade of experience (yikes) as a Senior Project Manager in the fields of interactive design and advertising. 

Though she counts it a privilege to have worked at large agencies, Shanita is happiest in smaller, close-knit teams because of their ability to adapt readily and embrace iteration.

Mercedes Cox

Mercedes Cox is the Principal Engineer and Product Owner for Target’s Product Security program. She has over 10 years experience in both security and engineering, with a passion for automated security testing and promoting other women in tech. Mercedes moved to the Twin Cities in 2008 with her husband and boxer dog Molly.

KRISTINA DURIVAGE

Kristina Durivage is a front end engineer by day and hardware hacker by night. She lives in Minneapolis.

LISA MABLEY

Lisa is a full-stack software engineer with expertise in JavaScript, Angular and SQL, and a background in graphic design. She participated in Hack the Gap for the past two years -- last year as a member of the winning team, Talkative Chef. She graduated from Prime Digital Academy with the Lambda cohort in 2016.

Tom Benbow

Tom has over 15 years of experience as a creative director, animator, designer and web developer. Equally passionate about design and code Tom has an innate ability to understand projects from varying perspectives.

Amanda Lagrang

Amanda Lagrange is the CEO of Tech Dump and Tech Discounts, the linked social enterprise that creates jobs for people with barriers to employment through electronics recycling, refurbishing and retail sales. An Indiana native and proud millennial, Amanda graduated from Indiana University.

Tamara Temple

Tamara Temple is seasoned software developer with a lot of experience in web development, server software, devops, and testing. She has always been passionate about helping people learn about and improve their skills in programming, tooling, and organizing. Tamara currently leads a weekly drop-in study group for women learning how to code. Tamara attended two Hack-the-Gap weekends as a participant, and is looking forward to mentoring teams this year.

Baskin Tarpan

Baskin Tapkan is a lead software developer with vast experience in web application design, development and deployment. Baskin has been developing mainly web applications since 1997 in digital media generation, process automation, data storage, manufacturing, healthcare, education, publishing and service industries. He has a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering and is a senior IEEE member.

Emi Lyman

Emi is an artist and Senior Software Engineer specializing in UI, SVG, data visualization, and browser-based animations. Emi has volunteered or participated in every year of Hack the Gap! She's totally pumped to see what teams come up with and even more excited to see that gap grow smaller each year. Emi enjoys 80s thrift-store finds, digging/planting stuff, and is crossing her fingers that her newly-seeded front-yard prairie will come up in full force this spring.

Cassie Utt

Cassie spends her days working with technology and software and her evenings performing with local theatre and opera companies. Last year, she co-founded Monicat Data, which focuses on providing data and technical solutions to arts organizations. She moved to Minneapolis three years ago after receiving degrees in Computer Science and Vocal Performance from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Eryn O’Neil

Eryn O’Neil is an independent PHP developer and tech lead. Coming from the agency world, she has worked on everything from e-commerce and online promotions, to sites for rad Minnesota organizations (shoutout to NiceRide and Doomtree!), to developing a proprietary framework and CMS. Her philosophy is to build software by placing humans first: both the people who will use it and the developers who build it with you (and maintain it afterward). Based in Minneapolis, Eryn spends most of her free time blues dancing, flying on a trapeze, and wishing it weren’t snowing.

Jessica Zehavi

Inspired at an young age, one of Jessica's earliest memory is of playing Lode Runner with her dad on his Commodore 64. As a teenager, she got into open source software and started hacking online multiplayer games, quickly discovering that she had much more fun programming than playing! With over 15 years of experience as a Software Engineer working with interdisciplinary teams, she is versed in a variety of web and accessibility standards, has a strong background in the LAMP stack, and is fluent in PHP, python, JavaScript (jQuery/prototype libraries), C, Java, and HTML/CSS. When not basking the glow of a computer, she can be found romping around with her standard poodles, Jasper and Gideon.

Fred Deichler

Fred Deichler has worked in the technology industry for the past 18 years spending time both in managing hardware repair and custom software development. Currently, the Project Manager at the OurFamilyWizard website Fred oversees the coordinated development and improvement of a SaaS web solution with supporting native iOS and Android applications. In his off time, Fred is a youth community soccer coach and is working on his BS in Management from the University of Minnesota, Crookston.

Emily Allen

Emily has been leading software QA teams since 2009. She started her career in the Twin Cities and is thrilled to have recently returned to Minneapolis (and Hack the Gap!) from the Pacific Northwest.