Austin Ladies Hack
Mazhalai "Maddy" Chellathurai
September 01, 2014 | Tag: » austin, Blog, events
PyLadies Austin hosted Austin’s first ever Ladies-focussed Hackathon - Austin Ladies Hack, from Aug 15th-17th, 2014.
On Friday, Ladies met at the Flying Saucer to meet with fellow hackers, discuss ideas and form teams. Thanks to the PSF, food at this event was free to all the ladies who attended. On the 2nd day, the hackers were treated to a yummy breakfast by hosts and sponsors Rackspace. 25 ladies formed 5 teams and promptly started hacking at 10:15 am. They took a brief break for lunch and continued till 5pm, after which some teams met at local coffee houses to continue working on their apps. On the last day, all the teams worked feverishly to finish their apps and presentations before lunch.
Summary of presentations
First to present was Water Your Wallet, who presented an app which will find the cost of watering your plant, based on the type of plant and location. Technologies used: Kivy and Python
Next was a team of all first-time hackathon attendees, including a teenager, presenting Workout Buddies. This app help find workout partners with similar interests and also featured new event creation. Technologies used: Ruby, Sinatra, and Postgres
Third to present were team Symptom Tracker, who made an app to make it easier to track all your symptoms to take to the doctor, and which also allowed tracking for multiple family members. Technologies used: Java and SQLite
App #4 analysed job postings to tune in on skill pairings SkillCluster. Technologies used: Python and SQLAlchemy
Last but not least, Texas Women’s Clinic Finder provided maps and funding information for women’s health in Texas. They also translated their site into Spanish. Technologies used: Python, Google Maps API, Mapbox, and JavaScript.
All attendees were given door prizes - glasses laser-etched with a PyLadies Logo and “Austin Ladies Hack”, made by one of the organizers (Jess F). Special prizes - books from O'Reilly Media - were also handed out to winners of the foosball tournament.
First time hackathon attendees scored the 3rd prize with their app Workout Buddies. Each won a $50 gift card. 2nd prize went to Water Your Wallet, with $150 for each winner. Texas Women’s Clinic Finder scored first prize with $250 each. Cash prizes were generously sponsored by NumFOCUS and eBay, Inc.
Thank you to our sponsors!
Without your support this event would not have been possible!
