HACKATHON FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Virtual: April 1 - 21, 2024 

Onsite: St. Louis, MO for the “home stretch” April 20 - 21, 2024

 
 

Hosted by  WIN Network, Communities RISE Together, and Well-being and Equity in the World and Harris-Stowe University,  this groundbreaking event will harness the collective creativity of diverse teams to address systemic injustices prevalent in communities across the US and globally.

 
 

OVERVIEW

The “No Code” Hackathon for Social Change will encourage teams to prototype different ideas that help changemakers identify and fix the broken parts of the system that cause unfairness.  Teams that bring different skill sets will be able to see, and help others to see, the ways that “isms”--like racism, sexism, classism, caste, etc–disadvantage communities and set them up for poor life and health outcomes.  Whether your idea calls attention to the problem, provides a way to fix it, or builds a movement to make the change happen, we’d love to see it!  Create a team, create a project and your team could be walking away with cash prizes, networking opportunities, new friends, and the satisfaction of a fun project for a greater purpose.  



WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE?

You don’t need to be a programmer to participate in this “No Code” Hackathon.  It’s amazing what you can do with publicly available tools and data sets.  We’ll even help you learn, with a series of speakers during the week of April 8 - 12.  Of course, if you want to wow us with your code, we won’t stop you!  We’re seeking diverse teams: in addition to teams that cross race, ethnicity, and gender boundaries, the strongest teams will have a diversity of skill sets:  Youth, data scientists, developers, practitioners of public health, community members, urban planners, farmers, housing leaders, people with lived experience of inequity, UX experts, innovators–all are invited to work together to create the vital conditions, we all need to thrive. Teams and individuals from outside the US are welcome to participate.  You can enter as an already formed team, or as an individual with a time to form teams virtually (April 6 10a-noon CST).



WE WIN TOGETHER WEEK

The Hackathon is presented alongside a Gathering of changemakers discussing how to Be Better Ancestors.  All Hackathon participants are encouraged to attend the WE WIN Together sessions either virtually or in person at St Louis University April 22-25.  More information here.



FOCUS AREAS (Specific prompts will be provided upon registration)

  1.  Making Structural Racism more visible *

    • within the healthcare and public health system 

    • within other sectors (education, social services, transportation, etc)

  2. Mapping systems that are creating structural inequity

    • The organizations, regulations, policies and customs that need improvement

    • The people who have access and perspective on the broken parts and the ways they can come together to fix them 

  3. Connecting and growing millions of people to be better ancestors 



PRIZES ($1,000 each, 3 categories + 1 bonus, max 1 prize per team)

  1. Youth team, $1,000  All team members under the age of 30

  2. Intergenerational team:  $1,000.  One or more team members under the age of 30 AND one or more team members age 50+

  3. Open team: $1,000 No age requirements

  4. *BONUS Prize: $1,000 Attacking structural racism in the healthcare system




PROGRAM OPPORTUNITIES

Our judging panel and other guests, made up of innovators, technical and domain experts from industry, nonprofits, and academia will share their wisdom and perspective in 10-minute “lightning talks” during the home stretch, plus talks/tutorials on April 8-12.  Watch for a more detailed schedule.




KEY DATES

  • Registration Opens: Mar 14, 2024  

  • Link to Registration: www.winnetwork.org/hackathon-for-social-change-wwtw-2024 

  • Hackathon Opens: Apr 1, 2024   

  • Virtual Team Mixer (Meet up with other individuals to form a virtual team):  Apr 6, 2024 10:00 AM - noon CST (or asynchronously on Mighty Networks) 

  • Check-in for Onsite Teams:  Apr 20, 2024 10:00 AM CST

  • Project Submission Deadline: Sunday, April 21, 2024:  6 PM CST

  • Winners and Prizes Announced:  Monday, April 22, 2024:  6:30 PM CST

  • Winning Team Presentations (virtual) to WE WIN Together Attendees:  TBD

JUDGING PANEL (still growing)

Cindy Alvarez

Cindy Alvarez is a distinguished figure in the fields of user experience and customer development, currently serving as the Director of User Experience (UX) for PowerPoint at Microsoft. Before her current role, she made significant contributions as the Director of Customer Research for GitHub and as a Principal Group Product Manager in Microsoft's Cloud & AI group. Alvarez the autor of "Lean Customer Development: How to Build Products Your Customers Will Buy," published by O'Reilly Media (2014), a practical guide for engaging customers effectively to create products that genuinely meet their needs. She also began her career working in startups. Beyond her professional achievements, Alvarez is a vocal advocate for diversity and inclusion, driven by her own background as a Latina woman and a first-generation college graduate. She is passionate about supporting women, Black and Latinx individuals, and girls in tech, dedicating her efforts to pave the way for more inclusive industry practices​.

Jax Chaudhry

Jax Chaudhry is Executive Director of Project Invent. Project Invent empowers students with 21st-century skills to succeed individually and impact globally, through invention. Our goal is to create a generation of fearless, compassionate problem solvers.

The Project Invent program brings design thinking, engineering, coding and entrepreneurship skills to students across the country. For more than 10 years, Jax Chaudhry has worked with K-12 schools, nonprofits, managed operations and led regional teams to ensure student success.

Jax is an alumna of The University of Pennsylvania.

Jen Mazzon

Jen is the Chief Product Officer at Merit America and former head of product for Google Docs, Coursera for Business, Apigee Edge, and Education.com. She began her career at Intuit, where she spent a decade learning marketing and product management fundamentals. She left Intuit to join the founding team of Writely and then to re-launch Writely as Google Docs, post Google acquisition. Most recently before joining Merit America, Jen led the product and design teams at Evidation Health. Jen is a graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Yale University.

Somava Saha

Somava Saha, MD, MS is President and CEO of Well-being and Equity(WE) in the
World, a founding partner and Executive Lead of Well
Being In the Nation(WIN) Network, PI of RISE. A primary care clinician and public health professional, Dr. Saha has worked for over 25 years to build equitable and thriving people, communities and systems. She has developed frameworks for health, well-being and equity for communities, public health, health care, businesses that are being used in hundreds of communities around the world and is taught in 80+ universities. Previously, as vice president at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Dr. Saha led 100
Million Healthier Lives, which brought together 1850+ partners in 30+ countries reaching >500 million people to improve health, wellbeing and equity. She served as vice president at Cambridge
Health Alliance, where she led a system transformation that won national awards for improved health, experience and cost for safety net communities. In 2012, Somava was recognized as one of ten Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Young Leaders for contributions to improving the health of the nation. She was elected a Leading Causes of Life Global Fellow in 2016. She is faculty at Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Governance Institute.

Calvin Terrell 

Meet Calvin Terrell, a powerhouse leader dedicated to educating individuals about healing historical trauma linked to race, class, religion, gender, and environmental disruption. He is bringing the heat to WWTW 2024, where he'll take the stage on Wednesday, April 24 to ignite conversations about transforming trauma into power as a pathway to generational healing. Get ready to share, learn, and leave inspired. Don’t miss your chance to connect with Calvin at WE WIN Together Week, where he will be a featured speaker and a judge for the Hackathon for Social Change.

 
 

ONSITE LOGISTICS  (Reservation Required)

Only 50 spots available, preference given to youth attending WE WIN Together Week sessions.

Harris - Stowe University

AT&T Library Telecommunity Room

3026 Laclede Ave. Saint Louis, MO 63103



SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Available for $1,000 and up.  Contact Andrew.Martin@weintheworld.org for details.

FAQ

 

  • NO! This is a no-code hackathon which encourages teams to use available technology. Teams are encouraged to combine people with technology along with people familiar with racial justice and social change.

  • Age at the close of the hackathon, April 21, 2024 will be used to determine which category is appropriate for team prizes. e.g.. If your team has a teenager and a team member that turned 50 on April 21, 2024, you'd be included in the intergenerational category.

  • We will be using Mighty Networks as a platform for all communication! On April 1st, you will receive an invitation to join Mighty Networks for WE WIN and RISE Together and the Hackathon space! Every team member should join the Mighty Network space for Hackathon for Social Change.

  • We encourage everyone to use open source technology that is available for all or where there are free versions available.

  • YES! We will have 'tutorial sessions' available to learn more about both the technology and some of the challenges to be address in addressing structural inequity and structural racism! These will be available both live and recorded. Mentors will be available to answer questions.

  • We look forward to meeting you! There will be an 'on-site' home-stretch for teams to meet together on Saturday April 21 through Sunday April 22. You will have time to meet with other participants, mentors, and experts in the field!

  • To participate in the 'home stretch' you must be over 18. We will be at a local University working together. Specific location to be updated soon. Make sure you select the option for the 'on-site' when you register here.

  • You will be sent a link to join Mighty Networks and the Hackathon Space on Monday April 1 at 10am CDT.

 
 

For questions, please email us at win@weintheworld.org

Join the WIN Network!