Hackathon participants form teams and race to build a minimum viable product (MVP) to present before a panel of judges. The Code Fellows grads built and took home first-place prize for their application, Waste Not, that reduces food and clothing waste by connecting humanitarian groups with potential donors.
Waste Not will have the opportunity to attend HACKcelerator, a 12-week curriculum for transforming their MVP into a business. HACKcelerator provides training, a diverse network of mentors and guest speakers, and the opportunity to participate in a Silicon Valley demo day.
“One of the judge’s comments about Waste Not was that we were a well-rounded combination of developers,” Chow said. “Little did they know, the five of us went through the same full-stack JavaScript curriculum at Code Fellows, [which] prepared us to not only learn about where our personal strengths were, but also educated us to be versatile. We were able to switch around tasks when needed, and had an extra layer of flexibility that was absent in many teams.”
Waste Not was inspired by the billions of pounds of food that goes to waste annually—some of which originates from the board rooms, refrigerators, and hackathons of otherwise innovative tech companies.
The team first met and collaborated at Code Fellows. After working on projects together, they decided to attend the competition as a way to build their respective portfolios.
“None of us had ever been to a hackathon before, but we were up for the challenge,” Chow said. “Our cohort had just graduated [from Code Fellows], and attending hackathons, from what I’ve heard, is a great way to keep your skills sharp and to push your coding knowledge to the limits.”
Left to Right: Logan Tegman, Jesse Thach, Sabrina Tee, and Natalie Chow. Not pictured: Jose Tello
Congratulations again to the Waste Not team! Want to know more about the course these grads used to become successful JavaScript developers?
Learn more about Code 401: Advanced Software Development in Full-Stack JavaScript »
