Blog
An interview with founder Kali Williams
How did you come up with this event? I recently started attending hackathons and noticed that like most other tech spaces, it was almost entirely men. My experiences were positive ones, it wasn’t that I felt unwelcome. But I know there are a lot of women & minorities who wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable. I strongly identify as a feminist and have been an entrepreneur (including event planning) for 15 years so at dinner one night with a friend we were joking around and the phrase “hack the patriarchy” was brought up. I thought it would make a great name for a hackathon, so when I checked and the url was available, I figured it was fate! This event has totally inspired me and makes me excited for the potential, not only for the experience but for what can come out of it. There are a lot of issues facing women around the world today; from family planning to salary negotiation to safety and more. One thing I’ve learned in my life, is that when groups of passionate, intelligent, inspired people get together, anything is possible. Another thing that’s really important to me about this event is it’s ability to bring people of all different skill sets together. Traditional hackathons put a heavy focus on engineering & programming and obviously those skills are important. But we also want to bring together makers of all kinds and other creative skills like design & project management. We want to create a welcoming environment that allows anyone to work together to create potential solutions to the obstacles facing women. Do you have a nonprofit group and what is it called? I don’t currently have a nonprofit but I’ll likely be setting one up. So in the meantime we’ll call it a not-for-profit event What is your preferred writing style? casual yet professional? The word “patriarchy” can be seen as a militant-feminist term, so I want to make sure that it’s emphasized that it’s used in a playful way.