Girls Hack Ireland at DCU

The latest in a series of hugely successful Girls Hack Ireland events took place in Dublin City University’s All Hallows Campus on Saturday 11th March.

“Girls Hack Ireland” is a programme developed by The Insight Centre for Data Analytics with the aim of encouraging girls to consider pursuing the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). This is achieved through the delivery of a range of exciting, creative and interactive workshops geared towards generating interest in the disciplines among teenage girls aged 13-17.

The full-day event included a panel discussion with women in STEM,  a coding workshop and a “hackathon”. The event was facilitated largely by volunteers from Dublin City University’s Faculty of Engineering and Computing.

Avril Hayden, a  B.Eng. in Electronic and Computer Engineering student, joined the panel discussion to share her experience of being an engineering student at Dublin City University. Avril is one of our student ambassadors and you can follow her day to day life as a student on her student blog.

The day culminated with a highly competitive “hackathon” where participants were challenged to create an original web-based comic as part of a team. With the guidance of some very enthusiastic and helpful mentors, hackers designed and developed web content using a combination of HTML and CSS technologies. The creativity of the “hackers” wowed the judges, with several of the entries touching on a broad range of modern social and political issues, through the brilliantly satirical re-telling of well-known fairy tales. Prizes were awarded for the best comics of the day.

The initiative is partly funded by Science Foundation Ireland under the Discover Grant programme.