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by gfosco 4295 days ago
Consider it during judging.

I was recently at MHacks as a sponsor, and our 3 top hack choices were half or more than half female. We gave shout-outs to 2 of them, and our sponsor prize to our top choice.

At final presentations, the top 14 apps were seated separately from the rest... People started to notice it was an all male group. It looked and felt wrong. There's just no way that all 14 of those teams were more worthy of stage demos, and it's not encouraging for future participation.
1 comments
kelukelugames 4295 days ago
Can you link the 14 + 3 apps and let us evaluate them?

I do believe discrimination exists in our industry and have written about it, but I don't like to automatically assume its the default reason.

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gfosco 4295 days ago
This is the full list: http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions

I can't seem to find a list of the top 14. Here's an article than mentions a few of them: http://t.co/DdOmmQiaLY

The ones we liked: Leaftagger (a very useful developer tool for iOS developers) http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions/26195-leaftag...

Comfort App (not my favorite idea, but the entire process worked flawlessly, and it was very polished.) http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions/26197-comfort

FB Crypt - I normally super-hate any sort of browser extensions at hackathons, but seamlessly PGP encrypting/decrypting Facebook Chat was a great challenge. http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions/26314-fb-cryp...

Another trend I see is that if the hack appears sexy or innovative, even if it is not, it will go far. Android for iPhone took 2nd place... It was pitched as if an AOSP copy of Android was running on the phone, but quickly became clear it is just screen sharing like VNC. I've become a serious hackathon judging critic. YC Hacks finalist group was mostly embarrassing.

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kelukelugames 4295 days ago
Thanks for sharing the links. To be honest, I am not well-informed enough to judge them.

As for: "Another trend I see is that if the hack appears sexy or innovative...it will go far." I hate that too, but now accept it as reality. I am actively working on my showmanship.

link