Have you been to a hackathon lately? If so, chances are pretty good that the room was likely dominated by male coders and hackers, and that’s a topic that NASA wants to address with their coming hackathon dev events. This according to a recent article in FastCo on the topic… While NASA has been able to attract participants from all corners of the globe, it has consistently struggled to get women involved. NASA is working very hard to change this. “The attendance is generally 80% male,” says Beth Beck, NASA’s open innovation project manager, who runs the Space Apps Hackathon. “It’s more everyman than everywoman.”
NASA’s hackathons are open to people with diverse skill sets—not just people who know code. Beck has found that men are more likely to participate because they are interested in space; they simply show up with ideas. Women, on the other hand, need to feel like they have the appropriate battery of skills to contribute.
