Intel iQ – Jon Irwin
How a hackathon project became a Kickstarter success that is enticing young students to dive into the world of software development.
Computer programs allow us to build almost anything these days, from complicated construction blueprints to amazingly life-like CGI visuals. Vidcode, started by Alexandra Diracles and Melissa Halfon, builds something even more important: confidence in young girls.
“Programming used to be a jumble [for me to understand],” says Emma, a 14-year-old user of Vidcode’s online software that teaches how to edit videos by changing the code itself.
“But now that I see the vocabulary and how it works, it’s a lot simpler, and I feel confident to continue coding.”
Vidcode’s Diracles didn’t learn to code until going to graduate school. She realized her own lack of interest was not a purposeful choice. It had more to do with the notion that most girls believe computer programming is for boys.
This perception is one Diracles and her business partner, Melissa Halfon, both 29, are trying to fight. But instead of encouraging women to embrace the present culture, which can be full of stigmas and stereotypes, they’re aiming to change how young girls and boys perceive coding in the first place.
In January 2014 in New York City, the two met at the Startup Weekend EDU NYC hackathon, which is an event where programmers come together over a weekend and build a project from scratch.
Halfon had been looking for ways to balance the gender gap in computer engineering, while Diracles’ research focused on how videos could grab the attention of girls who had never programmed but who loved posting and sharing videos online.
When the two merged their ideas during that hackathon, the result was an early version of Vidcode, a web-based application that encourages teens to see coding, not as not a technical bore, but as a tool for creativity.
That early version won Best New Idea at the hackathon.
Halfon said this win was the confidence booster that moved the team forward.
“We had this immediate validation,” she said.
Nine months later, Halfon and Diracles ran a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $30,000 to help turn their idea into a product, and them into owners of a company.
by MindMake via MindMake Blog
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