The objective of the Hackathon is to provide young girls, eager to join the software industry with an opportunity to develop some of the real-world skills they need to enter the business environment.
“This year, we’re pleased to announce several large corporate sponsors to the hackathon event, GirlCode is proud to champion a journey for companies to build diversity and cultivate inclusion,” says Zandile Keebine, chairwoman, GirlCodeZA.
Standard Bank is continuing its support as the headline sponsor for the event, and will soon be announcing a grand prize.
This year's platinum sponsors include Entelect Software, a company passionate about supporting the community and which has continued to demonstrate its support for the hackathon every year. Ericsson, which is a global leader in ICT solutions. One of its goals is for its workforce to be made up of at least 30% women by the year 2020 and it is through these kinds of partnerships that the company can achieve its mandate. Ericsson and Entelect employees also offer their time to perform a mentorship role to the teams on the day.
MTN will offer vouchers for industry-related courses and data packages as prizes. Domino’s pizza will be providing dinner for the participants on Saturday night.
Throughout the weekend, there will be a series of spot prizes designed to keep the energies up as the girls work through the night to build their solutions.
“The growth in support we are experiencing from large technology companies is a testament to the need for such events in the industry.”
This year's hackathon will require the participants to develop a solution within one of the following category areas; e-government, gamification, multi-channel retail, social welfare and productivity.
“Following the success of the GirlCode Workshop Series - workshops which have been running since February this year, we’re expecting many of the girls participating in the hackathon to develop some well thought-through solutions. The topics of this year's workshops; HTML, business modelling, design thinking, web development, and elevator pitches; were carefully designed to give participants the best chance to compete at the hackathon competition in August.
"We hope these events will be the chance to build a network of like-minded people and hopefully find some mentors along the way too,” says Keebine.
The event will take place at Tshimologong Precinct and is aiming to cater for 150 developers. Register here.
