At the Claremont Colleges (outside of LA, includes Pomona, Harvey Mudd, CMC, Scripps, and Pitzer), we've had success with almost the exact same strategy. At our last hackathon, we had a similar turnout (150+) and ratio (>1/3 women). Just to emphasize again the key things that worked for us:
* a commitment to beginners from the start
* a week of 2-hour classes (Hack Week) on building web applications from scratch targeted at non-developers
* a focus on learning rather than winning (although, we did advertise prizes)
* helpful mentors on call through out the tutorials and hackathon
* providing healthy food for those who wanted it
* having a diverse set of organizers, mentors and company reps who participants feel comfortable approaching during and before the hackathon to allay concerns about their participation
In my opinion, every single one of these things makes hackathons a better experience for everyone, so there's no reason not to do them. To say the least, we've had no problem with scaring away the typical "hackathon types" and this year, we're hoping to get close to a 50% ratio.
This is an excellent post and it's a shame it seems to be getting flagged.
Not only does it address problems in diversity in technology, but it provides concrete, repeatable steps to help improve the situation. It sounded like the hackathon was better for all involved, and not only the people they sought to include.
I would guess that it set off the voting ring detectors (rather than people manually flagging it; that would be pretty fucked up).
Sometimes, for posts like this that seem beneficial for everyone, I wish PG could just manually disable them...but that's a slippery slope to say the least.
I believe that it is getting flagged because the term "More Inclusive" is not liked by those hackathon goers who see no problem with the status quo, and may engage in rhetoric like "well if they wanted to come they are welcomed to"
* a commitment to beginners from the start
* a week of 2-hour classes (Hack Week) on building web applications from scratch targeted at non-developers
* a focus on learning rather than winning (although, we did advertise prizes)
* helpful mentors on call through out the tutorials and hackathon
* providing healthy food for those who wanted it
* having a diverse set of organizers, mentors and company reps who participants feel comfortable approaching during and before the hackathon to allay concerns about their participation
In my opinion, every single one of these things makes hackathons a better experience for everyone, so there's no reason not to do them. To say the least, we've had no problem with scaring away the typical "hackathon types" and this year, we're hoping to get close to a 50% ratio.