‘Sandesh for all’ is an application where a person, who has impaired hearing and cannot speak, can communicate with others as the signs he uses is converted into text for others to read.
That was one of the applications created and showcased by a team participating in the all-woman 5th Annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing India Conference 2014, organised by the Anita Borg Institute (ABI) and the Association of Computing Machinery India, in Bengaluru recently.
Hackathons are events where software developers, graphic and interface designers and design engineers collaborate intensely on software projects to address a specific software challenge and with the aim of creating a piece of useful software, on specified technology.
Today, they have been put to use in a myriad other ways — from encouraging developers to create technology solutions for social problems to helping companies recruit the right talent.
Instead of trying to guesstimate a candidate’s technical talent through a formal conversation, companies now use hackathons to test candidates’ technical prowess by posing defined problems for them to solve live at participants.
Myna Bisineer, Chief Operating Officer, Venturesity, which organises such hackathons for venture-funded companies, including a hiring hackathon for the technical team of Zivame, the online lingerie store, said, “Hackathons help companies discover talent beyond resumes and pedigrees.”
Another way hackathons help specific groups is by providing them a forum. Geetha Kannan, India Managing Director, Anita Borg Institute, said hackathons were platforms where women who have taken a career break can kick-start and resume work by helping them network and learn skills.
Vidya Laxman, Technical Director, Tesco HSC and Program Chair, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, said hackathons are “disruptive” and called Bengaluru a “happening hackathon destination” with its large start-up community and low average age of participants. However, she said the city’s events happen in isolation and lack a single point where one could get an overview of hackathons.
