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How A 17-Year-Old Girl Won a Hackathon
- needacig 13y agoGood for her!
- noonespecial 13y agoHowever, she points out that “women in tech” stories are also simply “tech stories.” Good point. As I always whisper to my own daughter, "the computer can't tell you're a girl."
- nlow 13y agoLove this ^ so true.
- gradstudent 13y agoI get what you're trying to do, or at least I think I do, but I also simultaneously think there's something not-quite-right with your statement. I think you need to be careful that you're not reinforcing to your daughter that being a girl is a kind of disability. One that she doesn't have to try and hide from the computer, only people.
- alexcroox 13y agoadding "or a boy" would probably help.
- arvidkahl 13y agoMaybe '[...] will not judge you for being a girl' would express the sad reality most.
- noonespecial 13y agoOne of the joys of family is built in context, a refuge from having to vet every possible meaning of the words you choose for fear of being misunderstood. I have nearly two decades to get my point across.
- ahoyhere 13y agoJust like "girls can do anything."
- hmsimha 13y agoyet...
- hmsimha 13y agoI was making a quip about data science techniques being more frequently applied and/or computers becoming self-aware, not a judgment on females in programming.. I apologize if this was not appropriately placed.
- jholman 13y agoOh, thanks... I missed that line in TFA. In the world we live in today, the word "girl" in the title is relevant to the story. I eagerly await the day when that story would be no-less-interesting with that word left out.
- flootch 13y ago“This is a terrific story, and proof that young girls are an untapped resource of innovation,” said Change The Ratio co-founder Rachel Sklar, when we told her the news. It seemed this young woman acted identically to any young individual interested in tech. Learned about tech. Lived tech. Talked tech. Practiced, practiced, practiced. Didn't need any self-victimizing pink ghetto look at me give me an advantage because I'm a poor damsel in tech crapola.
- danilocampos 13y agoCan you expand more on "self-victimizing," what you think that is, and how it expresses itself?
- flootch 13y agoHeh, I thought that was your job. If you actually are interested, see this post and all of the comments: http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/04/github-graciously-helps-female-programmers-cower-in-fear/ http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/04/github-graciously-helps-... I admit I don't understand the downvotes. danilocampus invited me to a comment war, I graciously declined with a bit of humor.
- danilocampos 13y agoSo, Github unveiled a diversity initiative. Which would appear to be their prerogative... Can you help me connect the dots between that and people making victims out of themselves?
- flootch 13y agoSee http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/04/github-graciously-helps-female-programmers-cower-in-fear/#comment-878837582 http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/04/github-graciously-helps-... Women aren't frail damsels that need your condescending efforts, or need your overly protective assumptions that are mainly patriarchy disguised as a cape to help them cross a puddle that you can manage. The key to more women in tech is outreach and education, not patronization and tales that they are frail, and need protection and special treatment. You can have the last word, but next time, try reading the link I share with you.
- archon 13y agoWhat she built is pretty cool. Good job Jennie. > "The best part is the feeling of accomplishment and knowing that I made a hack that people reacted positively to." Amazing what positive feedback can do.
- taroth 13y agoAnyone else find the tone of this article to be condescending? "Let’s focus on how one teenage girl, Jennie Lamere, defeated a room full of smart, motivated, experienced, full-grown men. This would seem to be instructive to the greater argument about women in technology, and besides, it has the added bonus of being -> based in fact rather than opinion <-" As if the argument for women is based primarily on opinion. “It’s also important to note that Jennie’s idea is a completely universal, gender-neutral one" Is it? Last time I checked gender-biased ideas can be just as valuable as gender-neutral ones. Why does Jennie need to 'prove' herself capable of producing gender-neutral ideas?
- sp332 13y agoAs if the argument for women is based primarily on opinion. Not "the argument", it's just that many arguments for women are based on opinion. Edit: and yeah I totally agree about the "gender-neutral" thing. I was kind of disappointed actually! I wanted to see something unusual, something the room full of dudes wouldn't have thought of :)
- mnicole 13y agoI don't think it's condescending; I think they're just trying to say that anyone can accomplish anything even if it seems the odds are against them. Would you be just as offended if it said "teenage boy?" The second statement you call out is important because -- and I wish I could find the interviews -- many female entrepreneurs admitted that it was difficult to get funding for projects that didn't have a female skew. That is not to say that gender-biased ideas aren't valuable, but pushing women to work on women-centric issues is already a problem.
- hmsimha 13y agoI get that. I agree with you the article is making a big deal out of the fact that it was a girl AND a teenager. In an ideal world, they wouldn't have any reason to do that because people would have their merits weighed without contextualizing to their demographic incidentals. In this case, however, I think the motivation in pointing out that the winner was a GIRL and a TEENAGER, is to inspire other young women to study programming. On the other hand, I could totally see them reading this article and thinking "man, they are making a huge deal out of this.. guess I should stick to fashion"
- achew22 13y agoBy being better than the competition. That is the answer.
- coherentpony 13y agoIt's possible to win a hackathon? I thought these things were for fun, not for competition.
- igorgue 13y agoIt depends, some of them are just for fun, others they have prizes and someone has to win, I generally don't care about it and most attendees don't either.
- EdJiang 13y agoHaving run almost a dozen hackathons for high school and college students, I'm not surprised at all to hear this story. At our last CodeDay in Seattle, a 17-year old HS student built an app that's received over 175,000 downloads on Google Play. http://www.geekwire.com/2013/student-programmer-creates-successful-app-codeday-seattle-meet-sidebar/ http://www.geekwire.com/2013/student-programmer-creates-succ... We've run CodeDay in five cities so far, with 30-100 students attending each event. If anything, it's a good sign that we can change the culture at the high school level and get more students into technology.
- zachlatta 13y agoHey! I went to the first CodeDay in LA a few weeks ago and it was quite fun! I'm looking forward to future CodeDays!
- joyeuse6701 13y agoThe article is focused on the creator, a 17 year old girl, and is less focused on the invention. The title illustrates the bias. How a young girl (two underdog classes) won a challenge. The title seems to reinforce the idea that being either and/or both is handicap in this environment and I dare say it is not!
- Jun8 13y agoLet me tell you a story: The FIRST Robotics Competition high school team (Mechanicats, from Chicago) and I were testing our robot late one night this February. While we were munching pizza, exhausted, a girl from the team came to me and asked if I enjoyed what I do (I'm the software mentor for the team). The reason for the question, she said, was that she was torn about what to study in college. She told me that her grandmother, who lived in California, told her that she should learn programming! The grandma said she heard that, since there are so few women in tech, her chances would be much greater in getting a good job. I was flabbergasted (this is a South Side school and she's not coming from a well-off family, how the grandma came with this info is anybody's guess). I told her that's absolutely true and she should go for it. She's now enrolled in the rPi based python class I'll start next week. So there you go, there's the solution to the "too few women in tech". Show young women that this is an huge opportunity, they should seize it. Tell them about the $5k for women in Hacker School. Tell them to participate in hackathons. Unfortunately, many of people focus on negative aspects of this situation. They have a lot to learn from my student's grandmother. Please teach this to as many girls you can influence.
- stmchn 13y agoI'm still not sure how I feel to be getting these advantages though. I feel like, the more advantages like this are offered, the more it dilutes my actual accomplishments. I feel like there's a subtext of resentment and doubt saying "Well, she only accomplished that because she received certain privileges." I recently won a competition, which is great and all, but I always wonder in the back of my mind if I won it because I was the only woman in the competition. And I know that's probably crazy but judging some of the HN comments about these kind of things, people clearly do think that way. I just want to be recognized solely for what I accomplish and not "Good for you, you're a FEMALE software developer!"
- mnicole 13y agoThis is an issue regardless of these incentives. It's the same as being told your brother must have gotten you into gaming; just being a woman isn't enough for you to be an individual with your own brain.
- greatquux 13y agoI was pretty flabbergasted to hear she's learned more at hackathons than her AP Computer Science class. What the hell are we doing in our educational system then? Is any of it actually worth anything if it's not resulting in real learning?
- rdouble 13y agoHave you ever seen the AP Computer Science materials? They have always been garbage.
- stmchn 13y agoAP Computer Science isn't very challenging. It's essentially a watered down version of the introductory programming class you have to take in college the last I checked. It's also geared towards the AP test so it doesn't exactly foster that much creativity and innovation. Sadly, a lot of high schools don't even offer this class in the first place. I think the program at my old high school even got shut down.
- err_badprocrast 13y agoIntroductory (aka prerequisite) computer science classes seem to be aimed at people who're learning from nothing. If you already know C++ in depth (or whatever language is used), a lot of it is just language-specific feature review. YMMV, this is judged from local state college/community college. about the education system, I'm of the opinion that high school is mostly a waste of time; I dropped out 2 years early and got a GED instead. (Don't try this at home.)
- zachlatta 13y agoHow did getting out of high school early go for you? I'm finding that high school is seriously lacking. To supplement, I've been working on my computer science major at a local community college. Unfortunately, doing both college and high school is extremely time consuming and I've been looking for alternatives to high school.
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- thom 13y agoI'm going to go ahead and assume she won it the same way anyone else wins a hackathon, and not bother clicking the link.
- j4pe 13y agoJust one more data point from this hackathon: Jen is as smart and motivated a 17-year-old I've ever met, and she solved a real pain point of mine with nothing but one day of a two-day hackathon and a greasemonkey script. But. If I were her, and the judges were commanding applause from the audience with specific references to my age and gender (this happened twice) instead of my app and skill - if I became this symbolic object of a story we all want to tell - I don't know how I'd feel about that. I wonder how she feels about it, especially in light of stmchn's comment on winning. Personally, I wish we lived in a world where this headline could read "Smart kid wins with cool hack." I guess when stories like this are no longer news, we'll know we've achieved normalcy.
- pizza 13y agoExactly. I wish instead of articles like "[minority | disadvantaged | young | old] person wins hackathon" there were articles like "[Intelligent] Person makes cool thing, wins hackathon."
- dmschulman 13y agoOne thing I picked up regarding the article itself and not the story: "If you remember one thing from this article, it should be that the father of this prize-winning girl hacker (Paul Lamere, director of developer community for The Echo Nest, which publishes Evolver.fm) did not, as one might suspect, force, cajole, or otherwise convince his daughter to take up hacking." Jennie's father is a part of the website which published an article about Jennie. It doesn't detract from my understanding of the story much, but I felt this fact diminished Jennie's accomplishment in some small way. Not in any meaningful way of course, but I wonder if this story would have been published if Jennie's father was not part of Evolver.fm's parent company.
- shirro 13y agoSome messages in there for me as a parent. Make time for chatting with my kids informally and away from distractions like tv and Internet. I have been for a few short hikes with my youngest and I probably should be doing more activities like that instead of us both sitting in front of a screen. Also if I treat girls like real human beings and talk to them about life, art, science, tech or anything else and value their opinions they turn out to be just as competent as boys which shouldn't really be surprising.