Sprinters hackathon insights from participant Emily O’ Connor

Edited @SimonCocking words by @emilio_emz

My experience at Sprinters

The smell of coffee was strong on Saturday morning at the start of Sprinters where a group of 20 women gathered to start their journey into the world of entrepreneurship. Some women had experience in the start-up world others were curious and had taken the step to making their idea a reality. Women of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities were ready to spend their weekend developing their ideas.

The two organisers Sasika and Mevish were welcoming from the start. The morning was spent getting to know each other and introducing our ideas. There was no shortage of ideas!

After hearing that only 1 per cent of top CEO speakers at the Web Summit 2015 were women I decided to join the co-working space with crèche facilities. I wanted to make sure that women were empowered to get involved in the workspace again. We called our co-working space Realtin.

We were set and ready to start planning out our ideas. We were given some great presentations by Daniel Ramamoorthy and Kim Pham. They shared their various experiences with us from Daniel nearly been eaten by a lion to Kim who through determination got an internship at age 16. We felt inspired, informed and ready to take on the task.

The evening was spent drawing up our lean canvases for our ideas and deciding the steps in making this idea an actual project. The mentors came in and gave advice and encouragement throughout the evening.

Sunday morning, another early start this time in the Digital hub in Crane Street. It was time to stop talking and start taking action. The second day was all about market evaluation and really becoming customer obsessed. We needed to see if people wanted our product. As always Saskia and Mevish were on hand to give any type of support that might be required, from coffee to helping teams with business plans. They really encouraged everyone.

Maren Lesche provided us with everything we needed to know about Twitter. And when energy began to dip on Sunday evening, Anne Ravanona, stepped in and talked to the group in a way that left us feeling ready to take on the world!

Pitch day arrived and it was time to go to Twitter. We were welcomed to Twitter by Aoife and her team. Throughout the day the mentors were walking around offering advice and encouragement to us. The day flew by and soon enough it was time for the pitches. The difference in everyone from Saturday morning to Monday morning was incredible. People who stood up on Saturday morning super nervous were now beaming with confidence.

The judge’s deliberated and the top three prizes were announced. Symptomatic (@symptomaicApp) were first, Buzzbot (@buzzbot111) were second and Elderhomeshare (@elderhomeshare) were third.

But this weekend was more than just a competition. It was a weekend where a group of strangers were transformed into a group of friends and entrepreneurs. A strong community was created, a community where women empower each other to do more, where there is no shortage of encouragement or support. This whole experience was invaluable and taught me that with a great team and great support you can achieve anything.

This event would have been nothing without the great team of Saskia and Mevish. They have inspired all of us and empowered us to strive for more and to change the status quo of women in the tech world.

Thank you to all the mentors and participants for making this such a great event.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

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