Yesterday I completed my very first Hackathon! A few weeks ago I submitted an application to Out in Tech for their Pride Month Digital Corps Build Day and was extremely excited to be chosen to contribute. It was a full-day event that allowed me to give back to the LGBTQ community and work with some talented queers in tech.
The purpose of the event was to build websites for LGBTQ and BIPOC business owners. One hundred people were a part of the event with backgrounds in design, programming, project management - more than I could list without looking like a job board.
My group was 12 people and our client, Bronx Clay, was a Bronx-based pottery business. The owners wanted a website where they could sell their pottery and merchandise, and provide information about the classes.
We split up into 3 teams: design, content, and store. Since I have experience with eCommerce I volunteered to be on the store team. This was my first time building a WordPress website and my first time working with the plugin WooCommerce but I found both very easy to navigate. My other teammates also weren’t familiar with the frameworks so we spent some time figuring out exactly what we needed, then jumped on a call with the client.
The client awesome, not just for the work she does in the community, but was very easy to talk to and was able to answer our questions and communicate exactly what she was looking for. Having worked with clients who can’t even do one of those things, I think we lucked out!
The build day was 7 hours, including the hour-long intro, 30-minute presentation, and lunch break. So the fact that we built an entire site in what was only 5 hours is incredible and the entire thing looked amazing at the end. I can’t wait for it to fully launch and I hope that having the site means that Bronx Clay can raise more money for their community and expand to their own site quickly!
It’s been a while since I worked on a team like this, and the biggest thing I learned was that no matter the industry it’s all very much the same. 12 people is a pretty big team for one project, so it was very necessary we divide it up into the different components for smaller teams to take on. There was also a struggle with the hierarchy of the group, which I think came from it being a volunteer lead project, as opposed to a business where there would be clearly defined roles moving into a team.
There is a difference working in queer groups, that I’ve noticed across the board with my work in the community. You get more people who are used to being talked over, ignored, or just not taken seriously. So when marginalized people work together, they tend to hold collaboration and communication in high regard. Nobody wants to make anybody else feel like their input isn’t valued, so there is a lot more group consultation. This can be great, as it gives people space who don’t always get it, but it can also drag things and make simple decisions a lot harder. It’s a trade-off I’ve come up against many times, and it can be very frustrating. That being said, I still prefer it to the situations I’ve been in where people are so disheartened that they quit the team, or are made to feel like they are useless. Even if all that was left was the less glamorous, repetitive, or “easy” tasks, I knew I was contributing to my team and was appreciated for it.
I’m not sure if this experience is typical of hackathons, but now that I’ve got one under my belt I’m excited to do more! The experience and networking that I went in for were great, but getting to spend the day with a bunch of queers and make new friends is what made the day for me.
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