- Instead of it being stored like that.
So what's left and what do we still need to do?
Once those are done we'll be able to start building.
I'm feeling good.
I feel like we'll be able to pull something together.
My grandma was actually one of the first
female electrical engineers in the United States,
so, I thought that working in tech
was something that a bunch of grandmas did.
But when I went through that process,
I realized that that wasn't actually
the gender dynamic that was there in the classroom
or at the companies I was looking to work at.
Growing up, I was always encouraged
to pursue activities in STEM.
I was a camp counselor at Camp Invention,
I was on a FIRST Robotics team,
and then in college I also did
a few Major League Hacking events
that were helpful with, kind of, exercising
that bravery muscle and exercising that muscle
of failing fast and learning often.
I knew I wanted to be working somewhere
where I felt comfortable
and where I felt like they had my best interest at heart,
so it was really nice
to be a part of a community at Microsoft,
and to really find that through Girls Who Code
and serving as a mentor there,
and now being an Intro to Computer Science teacher
at Warden High School.
Getting to be at a professional hackathon now,
that's a totally different transition.
If you want, we can start looking at ways to mock up.
So this hackathon was the first time
that I was serving as, I guess, in a manager role
for people who were more senior than me.
So I got to decide the scope of the project
and help out guiding on what we're actually
gonna get done on time and what we're gonna create.
So coming up with those decisions
was something I was really excited to do,
and organize and rally our team behind.
Hackathons are generally a lot of sitting down and coding,
coming up with ideas, and seeing what works.
You always have to pivot,
you always have to be ready to move
in a different direction,
because you never know where it's gonna go.
- We just check in every once in a while,
see where things are at from a planning.
I served as an honorary member of Bailey's team
at the hackathon,
and I got to help them with everything
from how to craft a demo and make a cool video
to actually deciding the scope of the project.
- Maybe we could have three of the same--
- Bailey was a really impressive hackathon team leader.
She wrangled a lot of different professional developers
with a wide range of skills.
Getting all of those people to run in the same direction
is a problem that even huge organizations
can have challenges with.
- Wait, so are you joining our hackathon team, then?
- What was really unique about the hackathon
is that you don't have to do your day job.
There were designers that were coding,
and software developers that were designing,
so it was really fun to all be a part
of a collaborative community
where we're all practicing and seeing what we can build.
So one of them is a weather app as we talked about--
- At the beginning of the hackathon,
Bailey and her team pitched me their idea
which was initially to build a notes app
on the blockchain.
Within the first couple of hours they had pivoted,
expanded the concept,
and started encountering some technical limitations.
- So for now we're focusing on...
Ultimately we decided on converging
on this rental car scenario
of a verifiable claim where I could store a driver's license
in my digital wallet
and be able to rent a car online
without having to go through the hassle
of the check-in table.
- Went from the idea of that flow
to now we have two working websites.
- Being at the hackathon was so helpful
because we were able to test our approach
and pivot quickly
and learn more about what we actually wanted to create.
We're now looking into launching this project
through the Microsoft Garage.
We're really excited that they're gonna partner with us
and actually coach us along the way
to bring this project to the next level.
I feel like the goal with any hackathon
is just to show up.
I think that just walking in the door
and saying that I had this idea
and I'm gonna work on it and see what we can create
is just the overarching meaning of going to a hackathon.
Day three, it's Wednesday, we have to get the video
done by today.
- Hackathons are a magical bubble
where people get to leave their day to day lives,
enter this risk-free environment,
and work on things that they may have never imagined
they would be capable of.
- One, two, three.
- [Team] Go team!
- Satya came by our booth, which was really exciting,
and we actually got the demo to work
moments before he came by.
So that was a little tense getting everything ready,
but I'm so proud of our team
that we were able to pull through
and get that together for him,
and give him an awesome demo.
- Good stuff.
- Thanks very much. - It's exciting stuff.
- Good to see you. - Good seeing you guys.
- [Bailey] I think that even the most failed hacks,
that's where you learn the most.
And so I think that it's a really healthy way
to experiment in a way where you're not
getting a grade at the end,
or it's not tied to your performance at work.
- You get to gather all of this collective knowledge
from hundreds of your peers that want you to succeed,
and everyone comes out the other end
having learned something new and stretched themselves,
and hopefully made a few friends along the way.
- One, two, three.
- [All] Hack!
- [Bailey] Someday I hope the perception I had as a kid,
that the tech industry was filled with grandmas,
can come to fruition,
because we need more women and girls in tech.
I feel like just being 23
and being able to lead a team at the hackathon
was really exciting
because it's a really rare opportunity
where you get to do that,
and I'm really grateful that Microsoft
has those opportunities in place.