

How a 17 year old girl won a hackathon - groundCode
https://medium.com/unforgettable-moments/a320774d20b5

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Shish2k
tl;dr: "the same way as any 25 year old guy would have done, by having a good
idea and the skill necessary to implement it"

Kind of depressing to think that this is "news", as if the idea of judging a
programmer by their programming, and not by their gender, is a radical new
idea...

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richardlblair
Exactly what I was going to say.

I'm not impressed that she is a girl, because I don't care. I am, however,
impressed that a 17 year old won. I love when younger people have the
motivation and drive to be really great at something.

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ja27
I took my 13 y/o daughter to a non-competitive Windows Phone / Windows 8 one
day hackathon a few months ago, thinking she would just enjoy seeing it and
maybe play with a dev environment. She wound up building and presenting a
minimal Windows Phone app. Now she's got the bug and wants to do more.

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sp332
Lots of discussion last time this was posted:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5634600>

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dclowd9901
My Big Question about women in technical fields is more about why, in general,
I see so few women who are genuinely curious about the world in which they
live. I have _never_ heard a woman posit aloud how they put the graphics on
the field of a football game, or how Facebook knows that they might know
someone, or, fuck, how a microwave works.

This young girl was simply curious and inquisitive. It wasn't about brains or
interest in technology; it was about asking questions and wondering.

So again I ask: why are so few women and girls inquisitive about their world?

~~~
Cyranix
Maybe they're uncomfortable openly expressing their curiosity in front of
people (especially men) who are overeager to make generalizations about
presumed correlations between gender and intellectual curiosity. Turning some
questions back to you:

* Have you considered that these same people may have intellectual conversations that don't involve you?

* Is there anything wrong with expressing intellectual curiosity in a non-verbal format, or choosing not to express something that is thought?

* Would you like to be judged in the same tone for not caring about the underlying principles of politics? art? or fashion?

 _Note: I don't actually care about getting answers to these questions, but I
won't let such shallow thinking go without response._

~~~
dclowd9901
First question: No, because I'm a very inquisitive person and often bring up
conversations that involve a heavy amount of curious observations.

Second: Of course not, but I tend to find people who _are_ inquisitive about
the world like to talk about it.

Third: I suppose if there was a negative tone associated with it, I probably
wouldn't, but I don't see how that has anythign to do with what I said

Note: If you don't care to have a conversation, then you're being overly
sensitive and spouting off emotionally. I'd rather not have a conversation
with someone who can't have a real conversation about real issues. Sometimes
that takes looking at a situation objectively and asking uncomfortable
questions.

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jskonhovd
Parenting done right.

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axus
Her winning hack is a great idea. Any link to the app?

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racl101
I'm much more impressed about the age than the gender. The title of the
article makes it sound that by virtue of being female she overcame a handicap.
Kind of silly to think like that nowadays don't you think?

But good on her for being young and accomplished.

~~~
kybernetyk
I'm impressed by neither. It's cool for her that she won but neither her
gender nor her age should be really worth of mentioning (in a sensationalist
manner).

Just look at what 15year old kids did with the demo scene in the 90s.

Not diminishing her (or anyone's) achievements but that kind of article is
usually written by people who think that computers are hardcore black magic
and only prodigies and people with a master in CS are able to program them.

