MetroHacks Women III, an initiative led by high-schoolers themselves, is a novel and exciting way to engage high school girls in computer education.
Imagine high school girls camping all night in a school typing furiously to code a computer program and creating solutions to various global issues. Buoyed by the success in the greater Boston area, the nonprofit organization MetroHacks is now branching out to other metro areas to encourage and engage high school girls to embrace computer science education and make it fun for them. Interestingly, it is led by a group of enthusiastic and tech-savvy high schoolers who organize hackathons and workshops for high-schoolers.
MetroHacks believes that every high school student should have the ability to pursue her passion for computer science, especially outside the classroom. The group hopes to inspire students to solve different issues plaguing the society and challenge them to demonstrate their passion, creativity, and innovative thinking through computer science.
In addition to catalyzing interest in computer science and technology in new coders and providing a fresh opportunity to experienced coders, the organization aims to kindle global thinking by promoting a sense of community and purpose. The participants will be from ages 13 to 18.
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This past February, MetroHacks Women II was held at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge, MA, on February 23. It was an incredible success in bridging the gap in teaching computer science to young girls. The Microsoft Northeast Region co-sponsored the event with Staples, with over 100 high school girls, ages 13-18, gathered to solve pressing social, environmental, and health issues facing the society by using the power of code and technology.
This event showed to the girls that they could use computer science as a tool to solve any problem they wanted to work on, expanding the opportunities in their futures and encourage them to pursue other STEM-related fields.
Inspired by the success of the event, the MetroHacks organizers have decided to expand the girls’ event to two new cities outside of Boston, Atlanta, GA, and Washington, DC, on September 21, 2019. They will host two more events in Hartford, CT, and New York City in January.
WHAT: METROHACKS HACKATHON
WHERE: ATLANTA; WASHINGTON, DC
WHEN: SEPTEMBER 21, 2019
Organizing hackathons outside of the Boston area is out of the comfort zone for these young high school students, but they are willing to take on this challenge with the continued support from partners like Microsoft. This free event in each city is expected to attract at least 125 to 150 high school girl hackers.
This year’s local high school leadership team in Atlanta is Krushna Malapati, Adhrija Anbu, Hansika Nanduri, Tejas Veedhulur, Vishruth Madhusudhan and Amit Balaji. Local high school leadership team in Washington, D.C, includes Paurav Kananur, Anusha Rao, Disha Adapa, Shloka Adapa and Vishnu Kumar. The MetroHacks organization was co-founded and is managed by Shrunothra Ambati, now a senior at Wellesley College.