Shruti Das, 20
During Shruti’s first semester of college, she attended her first hackathon, Technica 2017. She recalls it being the first time she found herself at ease in a room full of tech majors. Before Technica, she had suffered from imposter syndrome as many of us do. Joining the community completely reshaped the way in which she views the future of technology, but it also helped her to see her own role within it.
Leaving the event, Shruti felt a surge of inspiration to get more involved in the community and the following semester, she became a part of the Bitcamp organizing team. She wanted to foster a similar environment that she had experienced herself: one that welcomes and supports all beginners and first-time hackers.
As an organizer for Technica, Shruti works to empower diversity of thought. She strives to foster an inclusive atmosphere in which everyone feels they can voice their opinions and reach their full potential. Her first year organizing, she helped introduce the concept of pronoun pins to the event in order to help hackers express themselves and feel respected by the community. In the three years that she has been a part of the organizing team, she has seen the diverse channels of marketing create an unprecedented shift within their hacker population ranging in major and age. Not only are students attending but family units, teachers, and more come to be a part of the community. As an organizer, she is reshaping the way students view hackathon culture and the ways in which we experience technology, which means giving everyone an equal opportunity to pursue it.
Through hackathons, Shruti has met incredible friends, mentors and role models who all help to teach her the importance of community, and constantly motivate her with their creativity and work ethic. At this stage in her life and career, Shruti believes that the people she works with matters far more than the work itself. While she aspires to work on something meaningful, she looks forward to cultivating a healthy team dynamic so that everyone can come together to build technology that has a real impact on the world.
Her favorite hackathon project is one she made with a friend from high school at TechTogether Boston 2019. They were both involved with UNICEF in high school and found an immense amount of public information in the UN’s data archives. Combining their passions for female empowerment and sustainable development, they centered their hack around the UN Global Goals. They built a touch-sensitive map (after experimenting with Bare Conductive paint) to display visual progress updates toward the UN Global Goal for gender equality. They saw the physical map as a fun and interactive way to engage citizens in helping them to understand the UN’s Global Goals. By pressing a finger on a continent, the user could visually see aggregated data for all the countries in any continent within the context of gender equality.
Quick Facts
Shruti Das, 20
During Shruti’s first semester of college, she attended her first hackathon, Technica 2017. She recalls it being the first time she found herself at ease in a room full of tech majors. Before Technica, she had suffered from imposter syndrome as many of us do. Joining the community completely reshaped the way in which she views the future of technology, but it also helped her to see her own role within it.
Leaving the event, Shruti felt a surge of inspiration to get more involved in the community and the following semester, she became a part of the Bitcamp organizing team. She wanted to foster a similar environment that she had experienced herself: one that welcomes and supports all beginners and first-time hackers.
As an organizer for Technica, Shruti works to empower diversity of thought. She strives to foster an inclusive atmosphere in which everyone feels they can voice their opinions and reach their full potential. Her first year organizing, she helped introduce the concept of pronoun pins to the event in order to help hackers express themselves and feel respected by the community. In the three years that she has been a part of the organizing team, she has seen the diverse channels of marketing create an unprecedented shift within their hacker population ranging in major and age. Not only are students attending but family units, teachers, and more come to be a part of the community. As an organizer, she is reshaping the way students view hackathon culture and the ways in which we experience technology, which means giving everyone an equal opportunity to pursue it.
Through hackathons, Shruti has met incredible friends, mentors and role models who all help to teach her the importance of community, and constantly motivate her with their creativity and work ethic. At this stage in her life and career, Shruti believes that the people she works with matters far more than the work itself. While she aspires to work on something meaningful, she looks forward to cultivating a healthy team dynamic so that everyone can come together to build technology that has a real impact on the world.
Her favorite hackathon project is one she made with a friend from high school at TechTogether Boston 2019. They were both involved with UNICEF in high school and found an immense amount of public information in the UN’s data archives. Combining their passions for female empowerment and sustainable development, they centered their hack around the UN Global Goals. They built a touch-sensitive map (after experimenting with Bare Conductive paint) to display visual progress updates toward the UN Global Goal for gender equality. They saw the physical map as a fun and interactive way to engage citizens in helping them to understand the UN’s Global Goals. By pressing a finger on a continent, the user could visually see aggregated data for all the countries in any continent within the context of gender equality.
