This past weekend PACS alumni Yael Magid saw the success of a project she had, no doubt, worked on for months. Put on by Developers Without Borders, a group that focuses on providing useful and lifesaving technology for people in developing countries, the Break Inequality Hackathon was organized by the women’s partnership program which is headed by Magid. The Hackathon took place at Google Headquarters in Kitchener Ontario, and is designed to use web and SMS tools to find ways to connect women in rural communities to the resources they need. The Hackathon works by bringing female (and male) developers together with Bangladeshi women to work on solutions to empower and provide accessibility for the most disadvantaged women in their rural communities. The winning group of this years Hackathon was ‘Natal Net’, an app that helps women in developing countries communicate with health professionals.
The Break Inequality Hackathon also works to address gender issues here at home. Women in technology are vastly underrepresented, with an average tech company having only 30% of their workforce be female. The Hackathon works to address this gender gap in STEM fields while also addressing the women in low income countries who are underrepresented in an even broader sense, in education, rights, and overall equal opportunity.
Congrats to Yael on such an incredible and successful event!
