In an effort to take a look at what is keeping women from advancing in tech—and better yet, solve those problems—the AngelHack community created Lady Problems, a 20-city hackathon series that challenged more than 100,000 developers, designers, and entrepreneurs across the globe to create tech addressing the problems that hinder female entrepreneurship.
With challenges in categories such as health, economic empowerment, safety and culture, it was no question for us to sponsor this inspiring series, knowing that the projects created would make a difference in the world.
Throughout the course of the series, we had the pleasure of connecting with five of the winning hackathon teams in the U.S. to learn about the prototypes they created as well as the stories behind them. These projects, all focused on helping women break into and sustain a career in tech and entrepreneurship, were creative, innovative and inspiring. We hope you’re as inspired as we are!
San Francisco, CA
The team: Amy (software engineer); Maggie (product designer); Bonnie (software engineer)
Their winning idea: H4Werk, a tool that helps you prepare for an H4 EAD Visa application, which will help many qualified spouses (many of whom are women) of H1B visa holders to obtain employment authorization in the U.S.
How it will help women in tech: As of May 2015, H4 visa holders are finally eligible to apply for EAD. The process is vigorous and complicated, though, and many applications are rejected because of missing documents, incorrect payment and avoidable human errors. H4Werk provides a solution to these pain points by automating, guiding and educating the applicants through their visa application process.
New York City, NY
The team: Emilie (freelance consultant); Simon (developer)
Their winning idea: Allie, a Slackbot that reports, tracks, and manages bias in the workplace.
How it will help women in tech: 8 in 10 women (83 percent) in full-time employment believe gender discrimination is still present in the workplace, and nearly half (45 percent) think they have personally experienced discrimination in the workplace because of their gender. Tracker promotes a more inclusive workplace by empowering employees to report subtle bias, as well as allowing managers to track trends. It also provides tips and tools to encourage improvement.
Seattle, WA
The team: Catherine (UX designer); Weizong (undergrad student); Kyle (back-end developer); Erin (back-end data engineer); Daniel (Physics PhD)
Their winning idea: SpeakUp, a technological prototype that allows your ideas to be heard in the workplace by raising awareness of any one person’s voice being underrepresented and measuring specific user behavior.
How it will help women in tech: Today, there is a meeting room culture where men interrupt women more frequently than the reverse. This results in women’s ideas not being heard as often in the professional world. SpeakUp helps tackle that problem by recording meetings and showing a group dashboard that highlights how much each person has spoken compared to others and provides tips on how to communicate ideas more effectively.
Boston, MA
The team: Shannon (operations manager); Greyson (software developer)
Their winning idea: Foundhr, an app that connects women with funding.
How it will help women in tech: Men launch startups with twice as much capital as women. Fortunately there are grants available, some even exclusively for women, but it’s time consuming to find and apply for them. Foundhr makes it easy for women to find those opportunities for funding based on specific criteria provided.
Los Angeles, CA
The team: Becca (product designer); Lauren (designer), Marsha (Android developer), Sara (engineer) and Paul (developer)
Their winning idea: Inna, a free service that helps connect people with information about local laws that could impact their access to healthcare.
How it will help women in tech: Laws related to reproductive access are constantly changing and becoming more fragmented from one state line to the next. Knowledge is power: by providing women with access to information about services in their area, they’ll be empowered to be in control of their bodies. Inna is helping to set the foundation to a healthy life for women.
Each winning team received $2,000 worth of Upwork platform credits to help move their ideas from prototype to reality with the help of skilled freelance talent. Watch the blog later this year to see how they’ve progressed!
The post Tech to Help Women Thrive: Five Winning Teams from AngelHack’s Lady Problems Global Hackathon Series appeared first on Upwork Blog.
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