GirlCode recently held a ‘Hackathon’ in Johannesburg with the main prize being a trip to ‘Silicon Valley, California’. 4 UCT ladies won the prize in style.
GirlCode is an NPO that aims to promote women in the tech world. They want to create a network of women who are highly skilled in computer literacy, coding and design. To reach this goal they host an annual ‘Hackathon’.
“On the occasion of Women’s Month every year we call for all female programmers to enter the GirlCode Hackathon, a 48-hour non-stop programming challenge. The hackathon is open to all females who would like to come and work collaboratively to create a website, game, or mobile app that addresses a selected real world challenge.”
“Our hackathon is not run as a competition but rather a collaborative learning experience where everyone will walk away with new knowledge and starter kits to help them continue their journey”
This year a team of four ladies from UCT walked away with the top title as well as a trip to the Silicon Valley in the USA. Lorna Nqodi, Fadzai Mupfunya, Valerie Tshiani and Kungela Mzuku decided to use their skills to focus on the charitable side of life.
They created a website called Amava, which means ‘Experience’ in Xhosa. The website was designed to connect volunteers with NGOs. Their main focus being on social welfare and unemployment.
“Amava is targeted at unemployed millennials and people who want to upskill themselves. It directly links volunteers with roles that are advertised in the workforce. These include posts for accounting, engineering and software development that are needed by NGOs that can’t afford to hire these skills.” – Lorna Nqodi
“Winning is surreal. We can’t quite believe that we’re going to the US. We are very, very excited about going to Silicon Valley to learn more and network. It’s a tremendous opportunity,” – Fadzai Mupfunya
We love what GirlCode is doing for women in the tech and programming world. #GirlPower!
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