Hackathon“ and competition do not attract women to tech programs (NCSU c4l16)

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Hackathons are competitions though. People compete to write the best code in the shortest amount of time. If certain groups of people are uncomfortable competing, then they miss out.

Should we do more to encourage women to compete? Seems reasonable enough. But if the suggestion is we disallow competition completely, that I can't agree with.

"The suggestion" is that different ways of naming events produce different gender ratios. This tweet isn't making any value judgments about competition. It is directed at people who want to know how to make their events seem more appealing to women.

But a Hackathon and a Workshop are two different things - one is a competition, the other is not. Its not about making an event more appealing, its basically saying you need to change the event.

Guess it was all fun and games until we started using them to identify talent.

(although still better than having people demonstrate coding abilities on a whiteboard).

Lunch works if your metric is getting people to show up, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has attracted a large group with food, only to find they only wanted the food.

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Hackathon“ and competition do *not* attract women to tech programs (NCSU c4l16)

Hackathon“ and competition do not attract women to tech programs (NCSU c4l16)