💛 Hosted by Power By Girls & Tech+Me

August 3-August 10, 2020
an all-female week-long makeathon supporting your entrepreneurial ventures in tech

✉️ [email protected]

💛 about

💖 Overview
She Creates is a week-long makeathon from August 3 to August 10 that focuses on fostering the tech entrepreneurship ventures of young females. Throughout the week, you'll have the opportunity to attend workshops, hear from female speakers, work on your project individually or in teams, win prizes, and receive curriculum. Check out our FAQ for more info.

💖 Prizes
Categories: 1st Overall, 2nd Overall, 3rd Overall, Best Beginner, Best Idea

💖 Winners
1st [Sphero Minis & Glossier products]: Ripple (Nikki G & Ivy G)
2nd [Rocketbook Panda Planners & $20 gift card of your choice]: SpeechEasy (Arusha T, & Sanya G)
3rd [Google Cardboard VR]: SOLAIRE (Shreya L, Manasa L, Shivali Tadvai, Laasya N)
Best Beginner [2 pairs of String&&Loop socks]: Online School Guide (Sophia J)
Best Idea [2 pairs of String&&Loop socks]: LeukosCognosis (Sirihaasa N)
$15 Amazon gift card winner: Savannah Hirschi

View all the submitted projects here
Special thanks to Sphero, Rocketbook, and String&&Loop for sponsoring us!

💖 Rules
View rules here

💖 Judging Criteria

💛 speakers

Judy’s life’s mission is to accelerate the potential and ambitions of young women. She founded MoneyGirls to build a platform to help women master their financial lives and be the influential leaders they are poised to become. After working with countless female senior executives who continue to lack confidence in their financial powers, she’s out to empower every woman to maximize her independence by taking control of every aspect of her future. MoneyGirls connects the rising generation of smart, motivated women with the knowledge, tools, and network they need to confidently and capably run their own money.
Previously, Judy and Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei launched The Leadership Consortium, a company working with Fortune 100 companies to accelerate more senior women into the C-Suite. Prior to that, she oversaw fintech Business Development at Uber, building strategic partnerships with financial establishments and disrupters, and launching innovative products such as Uber's first consumer credit card. She was also one of the few female leaders at Uber during a tumultuous crisis in culture and leadership. Judy was an early employee at diapers.com, leading the company from scale, growth to acquisition by Amazon. She graduated from Harvard Business School, and remains on the alumni board.

Closing Ceremony Keynote
Shriya is Operations Lead at On Deck, helping amazing founders from around the world build the next world-changing companies. On Deck founders have built over 180 companies and raised over $100M total in just 1 year of the Fellowship program. Previously, she was Founder & CEO of The Violet Society, helping female & non-binary people in tech find a support system, community, and mentorship. Shriya was also a UX Designer & Product manager at GLIDR (B2B SaaS software platform for Product Managers), Reforge (a professional education program for mid-career tech professionals to strengthen hard skills), and Assembled (a professional social network for top STEM college students). She co-created Spectra, a hackathon for female and non-binary people, and studied Computer Science at Tufts University. In her spare time, she enjoys Bollywood dance, reading science fiction, and trying vegetarian recipes.

Creating the Future Starts With You
An inspirational presentation about Abigayle’s ups and downs as a woman in STEM and passionate mental health advocate. She will be talking about being brave, embracing failure, innovation that excites, and her plans with Magnify.

Abigayle Peterson is an incoming freshman at Western Washington University in the honors program and Distinguished Scholars of Computer Science/Math with a full-ride scholarship where she will pursue computer science with a focus in artificial intelligence. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Magnify, an upcoming mental health app whose mission is to provide free, high-quality mental health services to ensure everyone gains equal access to wellness support. She is also the Co-Founder, lead communications manager, and lead curriculum developer of CodeHers Collective, a nonprofit that teaches young girls how to code for free. This summer, she is conducting machine learning research in the CSE Education Lab at Western Washington University under Dr. Qiang Hao. Abigayle is an Anita B. Org Grace Hopper Student Scholar, Wonder Women in Tech Scholar, and has won awards for her entrepreneurship ventures. Abigayle is super passionate about mental health advocacy, racial equity, and AI for social good. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, writing for Reinvented Magazine, and eating Asian food with friend

Beating Burnout as a Woman in STEM
Using imposter syndrome as fuel to grow yourself professionally and personally in a sustainable and meaningful way
As women in STEM, we often feel the all-too-familiar pain of imposter syndrome – walking into a room and feeling like you aren’t supposed to be there. By taking imposter syndrome and using it as fuel, we can grow ourselves in a way that allows for meaningful professional and personal development while beating the burnout that is typically associated with a push for growth. Harshini will be sharing her story of finding her way to a sustainable form of self-development and the tips and tricks she uses to beat burnout in today’s competitive climate.

About the speaker: Harshini Sivakumar is a rising senior studying Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech. She is originally from Rochester, MI, and her love for hands-on and challenging projects combined with her constant wonder at the sky and the world above lead her to choose Aerospace Engineering as her career path. She is extremely active in her community, serving as president of her department's Student Advisory Council and as the Expansion chair for the National Women of Aeronautics and Astronautics organization. She is passionate about empowering women and gender minorities to excel in STEM and aerospace, and hopes to see a day where all young people feel supported and encouraged to pursue their dreams. Outside of school, she enjoys reading novels, watching TV and movies, spending time with friends and family, and traveling all over the world!

Effective Communication
Chinmayi will be speaking about her experiences with effectively translating jargon to younger students through STEM communication and public speaking. Being able to effectively understand others' work and share your own is especially important with interconnected academic communities, and Chinmayi will be sharing her advice for students to communicate with ease.

Chinmayi Balusu is a 17-year-old undergraduate sophomore at Columbia University pursuing neuroscience and life medical humanities. She is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of an international student-run organization that works to foster students' interdisciplinary interests in the brain through neuroscience and psychology education, outreach, and awareness. Chinmayi is a student researcher with a background in biomedicine and neurodegenerative diseases work who was named an ISEF finalist and the California Science and Engineering Fair's Student of the Year. She is also a youth science communicator, mentor, medical history enthusiast, and women in STEM advocate. In her free time, she enjoys practicing taekwondo, exploring new music, and going for long walks on nature trails.

💛 workshops

💖 Build the Future - A Crash Course on Start-ups
In this session, we'll be tackling how you can build a start-up from ideation to execution, as a high schooler! You'll dive deep into the Lean Startup Method and learn all about ideation, marketing, finance, and more. You'll also receive tips on how you can move past the notion that "youth can't create start-ups" and learn strategies to convince your older business partners. Have the chance to get all your burning questions answered in the Q & A!

About the speaker: Chloe Chia is the founder at The Lemonade Stand and started her entrepreneurial journey with selling mud pies in kindergarten. She competed in an incubator backed by Stanford and Berkeley was chosen as 1 of the 3 international semifinalists out of 300 entries to enter the accelerator for her start-up, Munch. She also pitched to a billionaire venture capitalist and Google consultant. Right now, she's raising seed funding at Plug and Play, a VC firm. You can learn more about her here!

💖 Web Development with HTML/CSS/JavaScript
Every great entrepreneurial venture has an amazing website to showcase products and services to future customers, partners, and investors! More specifically, HTML is the backbone of a webpage, CSS adds style, and JavaScript gives us graphics and animations. These three work together to create any awesome website. Through this mini workshop, the makers will be introduced to fundamentals of HTML/CSS/JavaScript which they can use to create their own hand-made websites!

About the speakers:
Avika is an incoming freshman at Stanford University, aspiring to study Computer Science on the AI track and Management Science & Engineering. She is also the founder of #Innovate teaching young girls computer science, Chief Creative Officer at Reinvented Magazine, prior State Technology Director at the California Association of Student Councils, and has spoken on a design review team for a satellite mission taking pictures of the Crab Nebula. Avika is a Mars Generation 24 Under 24 recipient and Forbes 30 Under 30 Fellow who hopes to continue merging technology and entrepreneurship to create products that revolutionize the world! In her free time, Avika is an avid nature photographer and loves playing any team sport (doubles tennis included!!)
Snigdha is an incoming freshman at Caltech, hoping to double major in Computer Science and Business, Economics, and Management. In the past, she founded Girls’ Empowerment, an outreach initiative to teach underprivileged girls Computer Science, and has served in leadership positions in numerous STEM Clubs and Societies in her high school. Currently, she is working in her positions on the leadership team of RootTech, on the operations team of Reinvented Magazine, on the instructor team of Coding Minds Academy, and is also researching Wildlife Image Detection software as part of Caltech’s Freshman Summer Research Institute. In the future, she hopes to use her skills and knowledge in Computer Science to revolutionize CS Education in a manner that ensures wider access to Computer Science from a young age, in order to bring more diversity into the field.

💖 Finding a Startup Idea
How to come up with a start-up idea that solves a relevant problem through the design thinking process.
Almost half of start-ups fail because of a lack of market fit. Why? Because not enough time goes into finding product-market fit, resulting in a product created that is not well suited for the user's needs. I'll be going over an iterative methodology designed by the Stanford D.School for understanding the problem you are solving and formulating a solution.

About the speaker: My name is Emily and I'm a rising sophomore studying Management Sciences and Engineering and CS at Stanford. I'm pretty involved in the start-up scene there and love entrepreneurship, social impact, and investing! I'm currently working on a startup called Tetherd.io, and wrote a book on social entrepreneurship (Beyond A Bake Sale). Feel free to reach out over Linkedin if you want to connect!

💖 Comprehensive, Compelling, and Confident Presentations
Don't know what to cover in a class presentation? Unsure of how to keep an audience engaged? Want to conquer your fears of speaking on stage? Caitlin Stanton has been giving presentations for years, from hackathon pitches to TEDx talks, and she'll be providing her insight and advice on developing and delivering a presentation in the most comprehensive, compelling, and confident way possible.

About the speaker: Caitlin Stanton is a recent graduate of Cornell University and incoming Masters student in electrical and computer engineering. On campus she was the founding president of the Beta Chi chapter of the engineering sorority Alpha Omega Epsilon, and is currently an executive board member for Women in Computing at Cornell, a teaching assistant for the ECE department, and a researcher for the Collective Embodied Intelligence lab. She's interned at places including Microsoft and Qualcomm, and is a hardware engineering intern at Lyft Level 5 in their autonomous vehicles division this summer. She's an advocate for diversity in tech through her public speaking and social media initiatives, and thoroughly enjoys opening up all kinds of students to the power of technology. Check out her podcast here

💖 Intro to UX/UI Design
At this workshop, you'll be learning about UX/UI tips, trends, and tricks that you can apply to any website or app! We'll go over what makes a design look good, developing your creative process, and explore how to make a mockup on Figma. (Please make a Figma account prior to the workshop!)

About the speaker: Gabby is a rising college freshman headed to New York for college this fall to study computer science. She is the founder of Helloo World, and works on both creative assets as well as software development on the team. Gabby carries four years of design experience, designing for The Trill Project as a product design intern, JUV Consulting as a freelance graphic designer, Generation She as a Creative Intern, TechTogether New York as a Technical Director, and March for Our Lives California as a communications team member. Outside of her work, she is an avid photographer, Netflix binger, and tries to make the world a better place.

💖 Social Media, Branding & Design
STUDENT LEADERS! Are you trying to:
• Grow your organization's following?
• Build a loyal audience?
• Master your organization's branding?
• Create engaging visuals WITHOUT using templates?
Join Stephanie, the graphic designer for Superposition and Ad Astra Youth in learning about graphic design, developing a strong brand and growing your social media presence. No experience is required-- all you need is Canva!

Topics Covered:
• Graphic design with Canva for beginners
• Designing posts WITHOUT templates
• Mastering your organization's branding
• Growing your following
• Creating engaging content

About the speaker: Stephanie Su is a rising Bay Area high school senior interested in tech, business, and design. She serves as Lead Director of Superposition, an international non-profit bridging the gender gap in STEM through creating educational opportunities & supportive spaces. As Lead Director, she has expanded Superposition beyond the Bay Area's largest all-women and non-binary hackathon to include year-round initiatives like a chapter program, webinar series, and mentorship program, reaching 60,000+ individuals in 51+ countries. She is also Co-Executive Director of Ad Astra Youth, which aims to foster student initiatives through consultations, an accelerator program, and educational events. In her free time, you can catch her drinking boba, creating LinkedIn content, and binge-watching Youtube.

💖 Intro to App Development & Intro to AI
Come to learn the basics of app development and AI, and learn how YOU can publish your own app to the App Store. Also, I'll be sharing some FREE resources that I have put together myself, so be sure to attend my workshop on August 9th at 11AM PST!

About the speaker: Tia is a rising high school senior from the Bay Area. She has recently released her own app to the App Store called AI4Sight which uses machine learning to aid the blind community. She is excited to host a workshop on her journey in both app development and AI and reveal how she went from having no experience to being a published app developer. See you at the workshop!

💖 Creating a Written Business Plan
Will start by talking about entrepreneurship and the importance of business plans in the field (what they are and what they’re used for) Will guide attendees through all the aspects of a written business plan (With an example)Will give tips on how to make business plans both appealing, reasonable, and appropriateWill propose an idea and have everyone in the workshop pitch in on outlining a business plan for it! (If we have time)
About the speakers:
Allene Yue is a rising junior from California attending Valley Christian High School. In her free time, she loves to tutor students in both academic fields and subjects like music theory, piano, business, or entrepreneurship. She enjoys playing piano and tennis and loves to travel the world as well
Candice Chan is a rising junior from California attending Valley Christian High School. In her free time, she enjoys playing the piano and especially loves photography. She is also passionate about fields relating to business and entrepreneurship.

💛 judges & mentors

💖 Juliana Emmanuelli (Judge)
Juliana Emmanuelli is a technical product manager and fullstack engineer at JP Morgan. She also is the co-founder and director of product at The WIT Project, an organization with the goal of empowering college-aged women from underrepresented backgrounds to enter the tech field through socially impactful projects. A graduate from Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Baruch, she is a major proponent of free access to equitable education. She is extremely passionate about creating diverse and inclusive spaces where tech products can thrive for social benefit.

💖 Ahva Sadeghi (Judge)
Ahva Sadeghi is a passionate social entrepreneur and co-founder of an all-female social impact tech startup, Symba. She was recently named Forbes 30 Under 30 and a Global Entrepreneur Scholar by the US Department of State.
Ahva completed her graduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science where she served as President of the Human Rights Students Committee and received the John Lewis Fellow with Humanity in Action.
Previously, Ahva has held multiple research positions with the US Department of State contributing to research on the 2015 Human Rights Report on the Middle East and 2014 Trafficking In Persons Report. She is a three-time National Model United Nations champion and a professional cellist. Ahva holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law at the University of Arizona as the Outstanding Senior from the Honors College.

💖 Maitri Shah (Judge)
Maitri is a recent grad from UC Berkeley, where she studied Computer Science and Economics. She is currently working on the Loans team at NerdWallet as a full stack engineer. Maitri is passionate about entrepreneurship, women in tech, design, social good, and sustainability. You can find her head in a good book or working on her side projects, attempting to make positive change in the world. In her free time, she likes to read, travel, cook, and meet other people.

💖 Fiona Whittington (Judge)
Fiona Whittington is the Co-founder and Executive Director of TechTogether, of an award-winning nonprofit that aims to increase the gender-diversity and inclusivity of the hackathon community. Her work for TechTogether has been featured in the New York Times, Boston Herald, and Washington Post. Fiona holds a bachelor's degree from Boston University in Advertising with a concentration in Computer Science.

💖 Caitlin Stanton (Mentor & Judge)
Caitlin Stanton is a recent graduate of Cornell University and incoming Masters student in electrical and computer engineering. On campus she was the founding president of the Beta Chi chapter of the engineering sorority Alpha Omega Epsilon, and is currently an executive board member for Women in Computing at Cornell, a teaching assistant for the ECE department, and a researcher for the Collective Embodied Intelligence lab. She's interned at places including Microsoft and Qualcomm, and is a hardware engineering intern at Lyft Level 5 in their autonomous vehicles division this summer. She's an advocate for diversity in tech through her public speaking and social media initiatives, and thoroughly enjoys opening up all kinds of students to the power of technology. Check out her podcast here

💖 Emily Yuan (Mentor & Judge)
My name is Emily and I'm a rising sophomore studying Management Sciences and Engineering and CS at Stanford. I'm pretty involved in the start-up scene there and love entrepreneurship, social impact, and investing! I'm currently working on a startup called Tetherd.io, and wrote a book on social entrepreneurship (Beyond A Bake Sale). Feel free to reach out over Linkedin if you want to connect!

💖 Anoushka Tanwar (Mentor)
I am an undergraduate student at college, in India. I am very passionate about women empowerment and human rights activism. I strongly believe that if girls support girls, the world will be ours to conquer! I love talking to people and hearing about their experiences, it's so fun!

💖 Aashni Patel (Mentor)
Aashni Patel is an incoming freshman at The Ohio State University. She’s studying Industrial engineering and hopes to study abroad in a Spanish speaking country during college! Her love of STEM comes from participation on various robotics teams throughout high school where she was presented with the deans list reward for exemplary service and participation in robotics!. She loves to dance and hopes to compete in college. When she’s not building robots or dancing her heart out, she works as a director for Learn With Us, a nonprofit that aims to provide tutoring resources to students of all backgrounds and income levels. She works with the Homegirl Project to support and empower women of color. In her free time she loves to host game-nights with friends and watch comedy shows.

💖 Schedule

💛 connect with us

💖 Tech+Me
Website: techplusme.org | Instagram: @tech.plusme | Facebook: Tech+Me

💖 Power By Girls
Website: powerbygirls.com | Instagram: @pwrbygrls | LinkedIn: Power By Girls

✉️ [email protected]

💛 faq

💖 What is a makeathon?
Similar to a hackathon, a makeathon is an event that allows you to bring your innovative ideas to life by helping you create the foundation for your entrepreneurial venture. She Creates will include a variety of workshops and specialized curriculum covering topics ranging from ideation to coding to marketing in order to equip you with the skills needed to bring your project vision to life. There is also a competitive aspect to this makeathon as participants can win prizes for their projects. For more info, please visit this page.

💖 Who can attend?
Any middle school or high school student who is female, nonbinary, or transgender. We also welcome international attendees who can speak English. However, we may not be able to ship prizes internationally.

💖 Is this makeathon beginner-friendly? Do I have to know how to code or do I need to have experience with business?
Definitely! You DO NOT need to know how to code to participate in our makeathon or have any experience with business. Our makeathon offers plenty of workshops and curriculum that will teach these skills. Additionally, the focus of this makeathon is on entrepreneurship, so you do not even have to create an incredibly advanced or polished product.

💖 What if I only want to attend workshops and hear from speakers? Am I required to submit a project?
As long as you register, you will be able to attend workshops and hear from speakers. You will also receive links to recordings of the workshops and speakers. You are not required to submit a project.

💖 Will I have to be available for the entire duration of the makeathon?
Nope! Throughout the week, there will be various workshops and check-ins, but you can ultimately choose when you decide to work on your project.

💖 What are the team sizes?
Each team can consist of 1-4 members.

💖 Where do I submit my finished project?
You will be submitting your project through a form that we send out at the beginning of our makeathon.

💖 Can I submit a project I started prior to the start of the makeathon?
Yes, but you will have to indicate that on your submission form. It will be taken into account when judging.

💖 I have a question that is not on this list. Who should I contact?
Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.