Elena Lape, 22
Elena always had a knack for coding. She started with Runescape and other various games where she found a hack that got her unlimited coins which she could spend within the game. She went on to sell these on PayPal. It wasn’t until Elena left Lithuania and moved to the United Kingdom for university that she found the hacker community.
She was looking for something to do over the weekend and stumbled upon a Facebook event for a hackathon in Glasgow, Do you have the GUTS. While her programming skills weren’t far developed past video game hacks, she decided to attend. At the event, a group of locals took her onto their team and 36 hours later, they presented their winning hack (an Alexa skill) on stage.
Elena feels her life has largely been shaped by Facebook groups such as Hackathon Hackers. These are hubs for hackathon goers. It was through these groups that Elena learned about events all over the globe, discovering interesting research and getting to interact with wildly intelligent people whom she later befriended. She even found her current residence at a hacker house in Panama on Hackathon Hackers.
Elena interrupted her education at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. During her time at school, she studied computer science and organized Hack the Burgh. One of her favorite memories was organizing with her team a made-to-order waffle van for participants to have at breakfast and they gave out seconds. She says, “I dare argue these waffles were some of the best in the country.”
In her third year of university, Elena was working for a local software company. She was getting a lot of practical experience but felt herself being driven across the Atlantic for the summer. She was interviewing with various companies. After attending Hackcon, Elena was reminded of the internships GitHub was offering and she ended up getting an internship working in partnerships on their Student Developer Pack in San Francisco.
After her internship ended, Elena was offered a remote contracting job for GitHub. Because she was remote, she realized she could live anywhere in the world. Elena lived in Panama for several months and recently settled in London for the near future. In Panama, she volunteered at a non-profit, Espacio Explora, where she taught teenagers how to code with HTML and CSS to build websites.
Elena claims that her favorite project was all of the friends she has made along the way. If not that, she says it would have to be a hackathon simulator she worked on at Hack Cambridge with Justin Gilbert. Her team-based it on GTA San Andreas (Multitheft Auto) and completely replicated the hackathon venue, branding, swag, organizers’ faces and recorded some typical sound bites. The goal of the game was to keep the hackers happy by constantly sourcing pizza and cleaning up the trash.
Quick Facts
Elena Lape, 22
Elena always had a knack for coding. She started with Runescape and other various games where she found a hack that got her unlimited coins which she could spend within the game. She went on to sell these on PayPal. It wasn’t until Elena left Lithuania and moved to the United Kingdom for university that she found the hacker community.
She was looking for something to do over the weekend and stumbled upon a Facebook event for a hackathon in Glasgow, Do you have the GUTS. While her programming skills weren’t far developed past video game hacks, she decided to attend. At the event, a group of locals took her onto their team and 36 hours later, they presented their winning hack (an Alexa skill) on stage.
Elena feels her life has largely been shaped by Facebook groups such as Hackathon Hackers. These are hubs for hackathon goers. It was through these groups that Elena learned about events all over the globe, discovering interesting research and getting to interact with wildly intelligent people whom she later befriended. She even found her current residence at a hacker house in Panama on Hackathon Hackers.
Elena interrupted her education at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. During her time at school, she studied computer science and organized Hack the Burgh. One of her favorite memories was organizing with her team a made-to-order waffle van for participants to have at breakfast and they gave out seconds. She says, “I dare argue these waffles were some of the best in the country.”
In her third year of university, Elena was working for a local software company. She was getting a lot of practical experience but felt herself being driven across the Atlantic for the summer. She was interviewing with various companies. After attending Hackcon, Elena was reminded of the internships GitHub was offering and she ended up getting an internship working in partnerships on their Student Developer Pack in San Francisco.
After her internship ended, Elena was offered a remote contracting job for GitHub. Because she was remote, she realized she could live anywhere in the world. Elena lived in Panama for several months and recently settled in London for the near future. In Panama, she volunteered at a non-profit, Espacio Explora, where she taught teenagers how to code with HTML and CSS to build websites.
Elena claims that her favorite project was all of the friends she has made along the way. If not that, she says it would have to be a hackathon simulator she worked on at Hack Cambridge with Justin Gilbert. Her team-based it on GTA San Andreas (Multitheft Auto) and completely replicated the hackathon venue, branding, swag, organizers’ faces and recorded some typical sound bites. The goal of the game was to keep the hackers happy by constantly sourcing pizza and cleaning up the trash.
