A few weeks ago, I took part in a girls-only hackathon organised by Girls in Tech, a club at UWC Dover dedicated to encouraging girls to code. The event was open to girls between 12 and 18 all across Singapore. This was the first year it was ever held. The hackathon took place over two days from on the 23rd and 24th of February. Here is my reflection of the experience:

At first, I was apprehensive about signing up. I barely have any coding experience, and I was scared I wouldn’t be able to do anything on the day. However, I still signed up, hoping to learn something from the event. On the first day, we formed teams of between 2 to 4 people. The goal, by the end of the next day, was to pitch a proposal for an app, with a sample to show as well. Judges would then vote on which group had created the best app and best proposal. The theme of the event was Empowerment, so we had to build an app or website that would empower people in one way or another. I formed a group with three other girls in my grade from school – Anoushka, Tejal and Amolika. On the first day, we took some time to come up with an idea and then attended a few workshops to learn how we could go about building the app. Our app had to be around the theme of empowerment, so we chose to create an app called Amare (“love” in Latin), dedicated to helping people get through their everyday stresses.

 

We started working on the app later on the first day. We first thought it would be a good idea to build a website, using a program called Atom. However, that proved to be troublesome, and we found it hard to build the website since we had almost no experience with the software. As a result, we decided to continue with the website, but also work on creating an app with the same features on Xcode (app development software for Apple). We decided to do this since two members of our group, Amolika and I, had experience with Xcode. So Amolika continued to work on the website, while Anoushka and I started building the frontend of the app (the part of the app which the user actually sees). Tejal helped us by creating designs and logos that we could use on the website and app. Working o Xcode was tricky since there was a lot that I didn’t know, but with the help of Youtube tutorials, we managed to get the app up and running.

On the last day, we continued working on the app, but we also had to start creating a proposal, outlining the purpose of the app, its features, and how it would help others, specifically how it would empower them. We didn’t spend much time on this, because we wanted to work more on the app and website. However, we tried our best to utilise our time and also work on the proposal. It was pretty nervewracking to actually present to the judges since we were presenting the idea that we had worked hard on for the past one and a half days. In the end, we didn’t win, but we still were happy about the experience.

Overall, I thought the experience was extremely valuable. Despite the entire even being spread over only two days, I learnt so much about building apps, to the point where our group was able to actually build the frontend of an app! I also met new people who were also interested in coding. In addition, it sparked a newfound interest in coding for me. Our group has already met up once or twice to continue to project. We hope to someday present our app to a company who could sponsor it. I think the fact that it was all girls made it easier for me to break out of my shell and start to develop an interest in the subject. I really enjoyed and the experience, and I would definitely sign up for it again if they organised another one!