How a 17 year old girl won a hackathon | Hacker News Reader

How a 17 year old girl won a hackathon

medium.com

24 pointsgroundCode24 comments

tl;dr: "the same way as any 25 year old guy would have done, by having a good idea and the skill necessary to implement it"

Kind of depressing to think that this is "news", as if the idea of judging a programmer by their programming, and not by their gender, is a radical new idea...

Exactly what I was going to say.

I'm not impressed that she is a girl, because I don't care. I am, however, impressed that a 17 year old won. I love when younger people have the motivation and drive to be really great at something.

I took my 13 y/o daughter to a non-competitive Windows Phone / Windows 8 one day hackathon a few months ago, thinking she would just enjoy seeing it and maybe play with a dev environment. She wound up building and presenting a minimal Windows Phone app. Now she's got the bug and wants to do more.

Lots of discussion last time this was posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5634600

My Big Question about women in technical fields is more about why, in general, I see so few women who are genuinely curious about the world in which they live. I have never heard a woman posit aloud how they put the graphics on the field of a football game, or how Facebook knows that they might know someone, or, fuck, how a microwave works.

This young girl was simply curious and inquisitive. It wasn't about brains or interest in technology; it was about asking questions and wondering.

So again I ask: why are so few women and girls inquisitive about their world?

I think that says more about the people you're hanging around with, rather than women in general. I know plenty who are genuinely curious about such things (and you can find a plethora in the news, university faculties, on message boards, etc.)

I'd believe that, but the men I hang out with tend to be genuinely curious people, so the so-called "control group" shows that I should be encountering at least as many curious women as men, and yet, I don't see that. So what else?

It could be many things other than a lack of curious women in the population at large. Not saying any of these are true, obviously, but some possibilities: You have biases (conscious or unconscious) in the "type" of woman you befriend? Social signaling or dynamics in your conversations leading to not discussing curiosity-inspiring topics with women? You are not interested in the specific areas or things they are curious about? Etc.

Could be a billion things. I'm simply expressing what I've observed in my humble little life. I've worked in retail, dug ditches, journalism, design, high tech. I've lived in red state and blue, in big cities and small rural farming communities and everything in between. I've befriended every kind of person you can imagine, from Ivy league stars to GED earners to drop outs, drug addicts, executives and criminals.

I'm not saying any of this necessarily gives my opinions more weight, but I like to think I've seen enough to feel I can recognize a pattern when I see it.

There are plenty of inquisitive and curious women, today and in the past. There is a certain kind of cultural and social pressure to not be this way for some women, which may affect how many women you know who are vocal or outwardly open about this attitude and personality.

Notice I didn't say there aren't any inquisitive women. Simply that I don't see them in the quantities that I see curiosity and inquisitiveness in men.

I'm not blaming women for this. I'm just asking why this seems so commonplace in regular observances?

Like c0riander says, your experience seems skewed. Here's some responses I wrote the other day that relates to this (this article is about men and women being polled about why more women aren't in tech): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5635451

I'm not sure what your link has anything to do with what I was asking. I'm talking about pure curiosity expressed. Where are your stats for that?

My point is that there's no curiosity when we're not encouraging girls to care the way we do with boys.

Maybe they're uncomfortable openly expressing their curiosity in front of people (especially men) who are overeager to make generalizations about presumed correlations between gender and intellectual curiosity. Turning some questions back to you:

* Have you considered that these same people may have intellectual conversations that don't involve you?

* Is there anything wrong with expressing intellectual curiosity in a non-verbal format, or choosing not to express something that is thought?

* Would you like to be judged in the same tone for not caring about the underlying principles of politics? art? or fashion?

Note: I don't actually care about getting answers to these questions, but I won't let such shallow thinking go without response.

First question: No, because I'm a very inquisitive person and often bring up conversations that involve a heavy amount of curious observations.

Second: Of course not, but I tend to find people who are inquisitive about the world like to talk about it.

Third: I suppose if there was a negative tone associated with it, I probably wouldn't, but I don't see how that has anythign to do with what I said

Note: If you don't care to have a conversation, then you're being overly sensitive and spouting off emotionally. I'd rather not have a conversation with someone who can't have a real conversation about real issues. Sometimes that takes looking at a situation objectively and asking uncomfortable questions.

Your question is based on anecdotal evidence. You should instead ask why so few women and girls in your life are inquisitive about their world?

In my personal experience, women are just as inquisitive as men, if not more, as evidenced by the fact that more girls than guys went on to study science after high school. But I wouldn't claim my experience is universally true.

I won't deny that this is based on anecdotal evidence. But I'm not making any claims. I'm simply observing the world as I've seen it, like any scientist would notice a curious pattern and wonder.

I'm frankly amazed how doing so seems to engender a high level of animosity from the community. Ironic.

Parenting done right.

Her winning hack is a great idea. Any link to the app?

I'm much more impressed about the age than the gender. The title of the article makes it sound that by virtue of being female she overcame a handicap. Kind of silly to think like that nowadays don't you think?

But good on her for being young and accomplished.

yep, this article immediately sprung to mind http://www.attendly.com/stop-complaining-about-the-lack-of-w...

I'm impressed by neither. It's cool for her that she won but neither her gender nor her age should be really worth of mentioning (in a sensationalist manner).

Just look at what 15year old kids did with the demo scene in the 90s.

Not diminishing her (or anyone's) achievements but that kind of article is usually written by people who think that computers are hardcore black magic and only prodigies and people with a master in CS are able to program them.

Being a women in tech isn't a handicap, but people probably will not treat you as well and that is a difficulty.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com