Q: What is the best way to start inventing and producing a marketable idea in technology?

A: Go to a Hackathon!!!

And that was exactly what I did! My first day of Spring break involved getting up at 7:00 AM , hastily getting ready, and driving to the Huston-Tillotson University in East Austin to attend their 3rd Annual Diversity Hackathon!!!

The word Hackathon sounds scary right? But don’t worry. Hackathons usually do not involve any hacking, instead, they are collaborative paradises for technology enthusiasts to innovate and build marketable technological innovations. This Hackathon that I went to (Diversity Hackathon) was created to inspire and encourage minorities to join the technology field.

Here is a timeline with explanations detailing my Saturday and Sunday Hackathon experience.

Saturday:

8:30AM: I reach Huston-Tillotson University and walk over to the Dow Jones Library. I am greeted by friendly faces who patiently walk me through the registration process. They hand me an indispensable green folder with instructions on how to come up with a marketable idea and different coding tips. Soon I notice the smell of fresh free breakfast, which brings a smile to my face (I love food and things that are free)!

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: The first guest speaker starts to speak to us about Education and the Educational gap between many communities of color in America. He talks about how mobile applications can slowly start bridging this massive gap in terms of technology. The next guest speaker talks about problems in health industry in the United States. She speaks to us about noticeable health disparities of various communities of color in which people of color do not have the correct access to health technologies, grocery stores, etc. This leads to a higher disease and mortality rate in those communities.

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: I meet my amazing team (we were preassigned team numbers). I am in Team 8, and we call ourselves Team Octopi, because none of us could think of a decent name. After introducing ourselves, we meet our amazing mentors! Shout out to Keith and Emelyn! Y’all were the best!!! Next, we discuss what area we wanted to focus on, Health, Social Justice, Education, or Business. After some discussion, we decide to focus on Health. We then proceeded to make a list of technological solutions to solve any problem in the health industry. After a few minutes of individual work, we shared our ideas. My idea is to create a calendaring system in which doctors can send reminders to patients to take their medicine. The patient can click a button to notify the doctor that they took their medicine. Everybody likes my idea, but they want to add a lot of their own features to it. My team discusses adding games, restaurants, GPS system, etc. and it is clear that we are losing our original goal and focus. We break for lunch.

12:30 PM: With 2 pizza slices on her plate, my team member expresses her opinion that our application idea is getting out of hand. We are losing our focus, and applications that try to do everything and turn out very complicated will NOT sell in the market. Our mentors agree and we redefine our problem that we are trying to solve. The problem we are trying to solve includes reminding patients to do what the doctor tells them to do, and helping doctors communicate well with their patients outside of the office. Therefore, we decide to include an exercise reminding system, medication reminding system, an appointment reminding system, and a chat box in which the patient can communicate with the doctor.

1:00 PM – 2:30 PM: We are drowning in a sea of paper, trying to design the layout of our mobile application. It is clear that we need help and advice to design our application to be user friendly. A teacher from Galvanize stops to help us with brainstorming. He tells us to draw each screen on a separate piece of paper in order to understand and explain every single detail on the screen.

2:30 PM – 6:00 PM: With our screens finalized, there is only one thing left to do. CODE!!!! We open up our laptops to Ionic Creator, which uses the library Angular. There, the elements has a drag and drop property to it, just like in Android Studio. However, because the library of Ionic is Angular, the backend code has to be written in Java. We finish the drag and drop section of it, and decide that we want to code the messaging part of it in Java. Here the patient can send a message to the doctor! This was VERY frustrating, and none of us could accomplish it! After everything started to blur into a mush, it was clear that we needed a break from coding!

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: We took an one hour break eating amazing Tacos and Blue-Bell ice cream.  I talked with my group members about non-coding related things and learned German on Duolingo (just for fun). It was nice not to talk about technology and coding for that one hour.

7:00 PM – 8:00 PM: The Google panel, invited by the directors of this Hackathon, speaks to us. They talk about how it is important to learn coding and be aware of technology, as it is an integral part of society today. Technology opens new doorways to opportunities and can bridge social and economic gaps. Their talk was truly inspiring, and further motivated me to go into a technological field. Although coding could be hard at times, it is well worth all the pain, sweat, and tears.

8:00PM – 9:30 PM: YAY!!!!!!!!! We solved the messaging coding error!!!!!!! After countless searches on Google, many Syntax checks and discussions with our mentor, we finally got our code to work! I have never felt more happy and proud in my life!!!! With a smile, I went back home, looking forward to tomorrow.

Sunday:

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: We all chat about random things during breakfast. It feels nice talking to other technophiles my age. The mood is very relaxed.

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: We create a Prezi in order to present our idea. It was short and sweet, as we did not want to bore the audience. Also, we decided what we would each present and explain.

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: We take a nice lunch break where I talk with my new friends and browse the SXSW agenda with Emelyn, my mentor. The costly rate of the conferences that I would like to go to, made me seriously think about getting a job and saving/investing the money I would earn.

1:00 PM – 6:00 PM: Practice! Practice! Practice! We practice our presentation countless times! All too quickly, it is time to present our idea.

6:00 PM – 7:30 PM: We all start to watch the presentations while eating Veggie rolls for dinner. I wear my Diversity Hackathon free shirt and try to suppress my gnawing feeling of nervousness for our presentation. Soon, it was our turn to present. I personally think we did very well, as everybody talked. I answer a few of the judges questions, and they seemed very impressed that we knew our stuff.

8:00 PM: The winner is announced! Although our team did not win, I am very happy for the team that did! A new friend that I made at the Hackathon was in that team, and their website they created was POPPIN’!  

8:30 PM: My mentors talk with me and I get their contact information to stay in touch with them. Both of them said that I was a very smart and capable young lady with world changing ideas! They also said that I was a good public speaker and told me not to lose that ability in the future. Additionally, they told me that they could not wait for what I would do in the future! Their support and encouragement truly was touching.

9:00 PM: As I head home, my mind is on FIRE! I think about different problems in the world and how technology could solve them. Before the age of technology, there was no way to completely eradicate poverty, health problems, educational barriers, etc. However, our generation, the generation with technological access and opportunity, has a chance to eradicate or majorly nullify global problems that have plagued our world since the beginning of mankind. All we need, is to empower young people to create technological solutions. As more and more people become not only consumers, but creators of technology, more and more problems in our world can be solved.