Ctrl Alt Delete Hate is a hackathon, powered by AngelHack, Code For A Cause, Tech Stands Up and We Persist, designed to leverage the power of people and technology to fight bigotry, hate, racism, and any forces seeking to divide humanity. We believe that the technology community has a responsibility to organize and utilize our collective skills and resources to protect and serve a unified, peaceful and inclusive society.
This event was held on April 1st - April 2nd, 2017 in the ThoughtWorks co-working space in San Francisco, CA.
On day 1, individuals made post-its on the walls. There was categories of skills and attendees would put their name next to what their skills are. Later in the day, people began to collaborate and find the people who matched the skillsets to put their team together. (Example: UX, Designer, Developer Frontend, Developer Backend, Project Manager, etc..). By the end of the day, teams were formed and the creative juices began to flow.
By day 2, there were 6 teams giving their last touch ups and ready to give their 60 second pitches. Every single idea was great!
Cisco DevNet was present (or you can say me!), who is also a partner sponsor of AngelHack. It was a lot of fun giving out swag and talking to attendees. This event was different than any hackathon I’ve been to. Attendees were not interested in competing or winning any prizes. (It was embarrassing that I didn't realize this until the end. People had no interest in prizes I had to offer. I should have asked the organizers for more details). The other sponsor gave out a few sweaters and the rest gave out stickers. Although people were very engaged in their project, they were still interested in what Cisco was doing in their DevNet program.
This type of hackathon is the future. Hackathons should be a place where people gather to share ideas, passions, and to solve a problem by teaming up with individuals who share different skillsets. Attendees were not stressed out and were well rested and seemed to be really enjoying working on their applications.
Let’s keep it this way. Until next time!
