Next Hackathon: October 5 & 6 2019

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

JOIN US AT THE NEXT HACKATHON ON OCTOBER 5TH AND 6TH, 2019.

WHAT

Hack the Gap is a two-day hackathon aimed at creating a high-energy weekend where women and non-binary people 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 in a safe place to hack and explore and build without the headwinds of inherent bias and sexism in tech.

WHO

We need idea people, designers, data people, testers, and programmers. If you don't code, that's cool. Come as you are!

Hack the Gap is for female-identified and non-binary people. We use an inclusive definition of “woman” and “female” and we welcome trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people.

If you're not sure if this event is for you? Get in touch with us.

Interested in volunteering or mentoring? Sign up here.

WHERE

TECHSTARS FARM TO FORK

370 Wabasha St N #900
St Paul, MN 55102

(Located in the Osborn370 Building)

SCHEDULE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5TH, 2019

7:30 AM: Doors open for breakfast (No need to stop for coffee ☕️ — we’ll have coffee available!)

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.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6TH, 2019

7:45 AM: Doors open for breakfast

12 PM: Lunch

12:30 PM: Doors open to Public for Demo Event

1 PM - 3 PM: Demos

3:30 PM: Award Ceremony

4 PM: Wrap up

PRIZE CATEGORIES

🏆 Decided and awarded by the Fall 2019 Hack the Gap judge panel. 🏆

⚡️ RAFFLE PRIZES! ⚡️

Geekettes

Oculus Headset

The Riveter

Three month resident membership to The Riveter.

Frontend Masters Licenses

Five one year licenses for all Frontend Master premium content, valued at $390 each..

Want to see your logo here?

Email hello@hackthegap.com if you’d like to donate a raffle prize.

✨ CATEGORY PRIZES ✨

SPS ‘Thirst for Growth’ Award

The group that takes a risk and tries something brand new will be awarded a prize to truly quench their ‘Thirst For Growth’ – which is a guiding value at SPS. Prize will include SPS camper mugs and coffee shop gift cards… plus some other trinkets. 📈☕️

🏆 Awarded by team members from the SPS Diversity and Inclusion Guild and Women in Tech groups.

Tech Community Prize

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Competition Rules

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 6 people. Prize categories won’t have more than six 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 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 judges will decide which team takes first, second and third prize.

The SPS ‘Thirst for Growth’ Prize is selected and awarded by SPS. 🌱

The 2019 Judging Panel

UCHENNA CHUKWU

Dr. Uchenna Chukwu (“Dr. U.”) is Founder and Chief Technology Officer by day, and an artificial intelligence (AI) inventor by night. With over 20 years experience as a startup CEO and 12 years leveraging AI to create, brand, protect, and monetize big data assets, she currently serves as CTO of Chi’s Research Corp, a Minnesota-headquartered AI firm.

She is a sought after speaker on entrepreneurship, patenting, machine learning, AI and other emerging technologies who has delivered numerous presentations and hosted media events both within the United States and abroad. Dr. U. believes in the use of technology to create holistic and socially responsible AI solutions that add value to the marketplace.

JENNA PEDERSON

Jenna Pederson is a business owner, community builder, and technical entrepreneur with a passion for community and equity-building. As founder and owner of 612 Software Foundry, she helps entrepreneurs make their product ideas a reality. Jenna is a community builder at heart and is passionate about making space for more women in tech and entrepreneurship. She is a proud Co-founder Emeritus of Hack The Gap, led the Twin Cities Geekettes for a number of years and currently serves on the Minnestar Board of Directors.

CHELSEY MCKINNEY

Chelsey McKinney is a Full Stack Developer for the City of Saint Paul. After interning for Software for Good she fell in love with computer programming and graduated from the University of Minnesota’s Full Stack Coding bootcamp. She has most recently transitioned into tech from a stint working for Minneapolis Public Schools.

Originally from Tennessee, she currently live in the Twin Cities and is bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish fluently. She will happily geek out about the use of semicolons in programming, Minneapolis Junior Devs, and MERN (Mongo, Express, React, and Node).

EMI LYMAN

Emi Lyman is a Senior Engineer at Target. With an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Emi came to the tech industry through roles as a professor of drawing and an art installation technician at the Waker. Her background in art propelled her into UI engineering, which has led her to become the co-creator and leading engineer on Target’s enterprise UI framework. She is a staunch advocate for hiring, mentoring and retaining engineers with marginalized identities, and she currently works with Target to recruit and interview new talent. In addition to coding, Emi also gardens, walks her two cats on leashes, and moonlights as a DJ for a 30+ queer dance party.

THE MENTORS

KEVIN WHINNERY

Kevin is a software developer from Saint Paul working in tech startups for the last 10 years. Ask Kevin for help with anything related to building and deploying web or mobile applications, or about building products for other software developers.

IAN COLDWATER

Ian Coldwater is a DevSecOps engineer turned Red Teamer, who specializes in hacking and hardening Kubernetes, containers and cloud-native infrastructure. They have spoken at numerous national conferences about Kubernetes and container security, including DerbyCon, O'Reilly Velocity, and DevOpsDays MSP. In their spare time, they like to go on cross-country road trips, participate in Capture the Flag competitions, and eat a lot of pie. Ian lives in Minneapolis and tweets @IanColdwater.

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.

JOE KARLSSON

Joe Karlsson is a Software Engineer from the frozen tundra known as Minneapolis, Minnesota. He writes code, builds teams and gives tech talks. He is the creator of feminist software, including bechdel.io which tells you if a movie script passes the Bechdel Test or not.

ALVINA VANG

Alvina Vang is an Infrastructure Architect in the Technology Leadership Development Program at Travelers. Her knowledge and expertise is in Infrastructure as a Code, Docker Containers and Kubernetes. Alvina is passionate about empowering girls and women to learn more about the different technology’s in the world and take any opportunity I can to get involved in the community. “The key to being a good mentor is to help people become more of who they are, not to make them like you.”