How did you come up with this event?   I recently started attending hackathons and noticed that like most other tech spaces, it was almost entirely men. My experiences were positive ones, it wasn’t that I felt unwelcome. But I know there are a lot of women & minorities who wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable.   I strongly identify as a feminist and have been an entrepreneur (including event planning) for 15 years so at dinner one night with a friend we were joking around and the phrase “hack the patriarchy” was brought up. I thought it would make a great name for a hackathon, so when I checked and the url was available, I figured it was fate!   This event has totally inspired me and makes me excited for the potential, not only for the experience but for what can come out of it. There are a lot of issues facing women around the world today; from family planning to salary negotiation to safety and more. One thing I’ve learned in my life, is that when groups of passionate, intelligent, inspired people get together, anything is possible.   Another thing that’s really important to me about this event is it’s ability to bring people of all different skill sets together. Traditional hackathons put a heavy focus on engineering & programming and obviously those skills are important. But we also want to bring together makers of all kinds and other creative skills like design & project management. We want to create a welcoming environment that allows anyone to work together to create potential solutions to the obstacles facing women.   Do you have a nonprofit group and what is it called?   I don’t currently have a nonprofit but I’ll likely be setting one up. So in the meantime we’ll call it a not-for-profit event   What is your preferred writing style? casual yet professional?     The word “patriarchy” can be seen as a militant-feminist term, so I want to make sure that it’s emphasized that it’s used in a playful way.

Gender statistics (look in Pocket for article about hackathon gender breakdown) include article links from woman who takes a hiatus from hackathons how digital products are often created with men in mind “brogrammer” attitudes aren’t in the media as much, but they haven’t gone away in tech spaces there are a lot of issues facing women and other minorities, we want to help focus on them  

Inclusiveness is one of HTP’s 5-Founding Principles, and it was the first one that made the list, even before technology. Because all the new technology in the world doesn’t matter if it’s built with exclusion of perspective. Hack the patriarchy is founded on the idea that a diverse perspective will inevitably create better and more creative solutions to the problems facing us in the world today.

We’ve been soliciting ideas from all the biggest thinkers online and with domain expertise. The theme of HTP is “Making Women’s Lives Better” and there are lots of ways to satisfy that. These are the categories we’ve come up with, if you have any suggestions please add them in the comments! Safety, Health, Travel, Communication, Career, Beauty, Immigration, Fasion, Family, Housing, Creativity, Entertainment, Crime, Relationships, Sexuality, Personal Growth, Legal, Activism, Education, Transporation Websites, apps, services, hardware are all welcome.

Jeanne such and such says this….

Ideas & Inspiration

• Online sexual harassment and abuse
• Street harassment & safety
• Salary Negotiation
• Activism
• Highlight Women in History

Things we love

Just Not Sorry – a Gmail Plugin that warns you when you write emails using words which undermine your message