Karachi, Pakistan: CodeGirls Pakistan, an exclusively women-only coding bootcamp, has organized one of its kind event – CodeGirls TechFest 2022 – where participants can showcase their immense talent and skills.
The event will be held on Saturday, November 26th, 2022, and includes four different types of competitions and a hackathon. Participants can compete in any one of the four competitions or the hackathon.
With one goal “to improve the gender parity in Pakistan’s tech industry.” CodeGirls strives is to empower young girls with coding and business skills, which helps them kick start their careers, become financially independent, and excel in the tech industry. ConsulNet Corporation founded the program with its partners United Global Initiative and WomenInTechPK. CodeGirls is funded by some of the leading tech giants, influencers, tech community members, and business moguls.
To date, more than 844 young women have graduated from the program with 170 plus job acquisitions and a starting salary of more than Rs. 40K. The program has more recently incorporated a new track in Phase II: Microsoft Dynamics Power BI.
According to Chief Operating Officer Genetech Solutions and Founder CodeGirls Pakistan, Shamim Rajani: “CodeGirls is no gimmick; we are not here to train and leave our graduates wandering around. We cater to the niche segment of women looking to become technologists, change makers, and pioneers. It is a painstaking and lengthy process, but when we see our graduates dotting the industry in impactful roles, it is all worth that. And the idea behind TechFest is to connect these dots so that they make a strong mesh of women developers, inventors, mentors, and recruiters. As well as inspire and open doors for more girls and women who still need to find their foothold.”
Agreeing with Shamim, Founder. WomenInTechPk and Co-founder CodeGirls Pakistan, Faiza. Yousuf Said: “Competitions and Hackathons are excellent ways to make people think creatively and out of the box and also allow them to brush up their networking skills. Tech Fest has four competitions and a hackathon with themes focused on challenges faced by women in their private and public lives, including skill-building, Access to opportunities, community building, health, wellness, and financial inclusion. We want to enable our alums, grad students, and early professionals to work and compete with each other. They will brainstorm and work together to find solutions and present them to the leaders of our tech ecosystem so they can find ample support and even access to finance to build upon their ideas.
Competition Rules:
- Competitions are Tech Agnostic (meaning you can use the whichever technology stack /tools you want)
- Internet access will be provided during the competitions.
- Actual challenge will be defined on the event day.
- Participation in the competitions is on an individual basis.
- A sample challenge is defined against each category below.
Hackathon Rules:
Ideate and design a solution and showcase it in front of a panel of judges!
Theme: Address one of the following challenges faced by the women in Pakistan:
- Skill-building
- Access to work/education opportunities
- Community Building
- Health and Wellness
- Financial Inclusion
- Mass-transit
- Workplace Safety
Participation in the hackathon will be in the form of teams of 2-4. All team members must fill this form separately.
EVENT GUIDELINES:
- This is an in-person event for girls/ women only. Participant must be in Karachi on the event date to attend.
- Day and Date: Saturday 26th Nov, 2022
- Time: 09:00am-06:00pm
- Participants will be provided participation certificates, swag kits lunch and tea.
- Venue: Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, A Block
- Fee: 1,000 PKR/ participant
- Competition and Hackathon participants must bring their own laptops with all the tools installed that they would want to use.
- Participant Eligibility Criteria: Female participants, Age 18+, must be present in Karachi, 0-3 years professional experience not more, Minimum qualification 12th grade.
- There will be 5 online workshops before the event day that participants may join to prepare for the hackathon/ competitions:
- How to give stellar presentations
- Business Canvas Model
- Customer Development
- Product Development 101
- Info Session
COMPETITIONS/ HACKATHON OUTLINES
| Competition/ Hackathon | Category | Tools | Deliverables |
| Competitions | Web Development | 1. Laptop/Computer
2. Internet 3. IDEs 4. Tech-agnostic, the basic requirement is to use HTML, CSS, and JS. 5. Any kind of framework/already available module can’t be used. They have to build it from scratch. |
1. Working website on local |
| UI/UX | 1. Laptop/Computer
2. Internet 3. Figma/Invision/Balsamiq or a similar tool 4. Adobe XD or a similar tool |
1. Ready-to-use User Interface Design
2. Prototype/wireframes |
|
| Mobile App Development | 1. Laptop/Computer
2. Internet 3. IDEs 4. Smartphone with cable 5. Tech-agnostic, the basic requirement is to use Android / Flutter / Kotlin. 6. Any kind of already available module can’t be used. They have to build it from scratch. |
1. Working App on Emulator / Smart Phone
(If you want to display on smart phone, you will need to bring your smart phone and data cable) |
|
| Software Testing – Manual | 1. Laptop/Computer
2. Internet 3. Screenshot/Screen Recording Tools (Loom, Screencastify, ShareX etc) |
1. Test Scenarios
2. Bug Reports w/ Evidence 3. Recommendations |
|
| Hackathon | Skill-building, Access to opportunities, Community Building, Health and Wellness, Financial Inclusion | 1. All participants will be encouraged to bring their laptops; if they don’t have a device, they can work in the lab.
2. We don’t need to give them any specific tools. They will only need a browser and an internet connection to do their work, as all tools required are cloud-based and free. 3. Wifi |
Idea and Wireframes |
There are cash prizes for the 1st and 2nd place holders in each category.
Image Source: CodeGirls Pakistan (Library Image)
