Ivanna Gomez Quiroz, 22
Ivanna Gomez Quiroz has followed her dreams and turned them into reality. Her tech journey is only beginning, and she is well on her way to enhancing the hacker community.
When Ivanna was a child, she loved watching Star Wars. Spaceships flying across the galaxy and robots acting like people inspired her, leading her to jump into an Introduction to Aerospace class in her first year of college. However, she realized this was not her path: her path was coding. Her Star Wars inspiration had changed, not disappeared. She says, “Initially I got sad at the realization that I would not be the one to design starships [but] I also realized that starships still need code!”
This new motivation to pursue coding led Ivanna to hackathons. She discovered them in her first year of college but found them intimidating. In her second year, she found the courage to attend one. She was surprised by how welcoming everyone was at her first hackathon, HackGT, in Fall 2019, and she immediately assimilated into the community. She went from not completing a project in HackGT to winning the overall best project at the 2021 HackHer event.
Ivanna learned many lessons from her hackathon experience. She made mistakes, and she saw the support and camaraderie of the hacker community that helped her instead of discouraging her. She also saw how technology could influence all kinds of change and that tech can bring ideas to life.
This realization that her coding abilities could make an impact motivated Ivanna to do more. Her first move was to apply to TechTogether to join their team, and they selected her as Technical Director of TechTogether Atlanta. She was surprised but helped organize it flawlessly and saw the reward of putting on a successful hackathon, especially in the faces of the participants. She says, “It was truly heartwarming to see everyone having fun and attending the events that everyone worked so hard to organize.”
Ivanna went on to apply to the MLH Fellowship, and in her brief time so far as a Fellow, she has thrived. She has found the fellowship supportive and is looking forward to working with the community in this new role.
With all these achievements, perhaps Ivanna’s most impactful actions have been to support underserved hackers. She says, “As a first-generation student from a low-income household, a person of color, and a woman, I have struggled to find representation and find people I can relate to.” As a result, her role in the community shifted from hacker to organizer with a goal to influence as many unsure hackers as she could to pursue a future in coding. She says, “I hope that my story serves to inspire other people that will come after me and remind them that while it is not easy, it can be done.”
Quick Facts
Ivanna Gomez Quiroz, 22
Ivanna Gomez Quiroz has followed her dreams and turned them into reality. Her tech journey is only beginning, and she is well on her way to enhancing the hacker community.
When Ivanna was a child, she loved watching Star Wars. Spaceships flying across the galaxy and robots acting like people inspired her, leading her to jump into an Introduction to Aerospace class in her first year of college. However, she realized this was not her path: her path was coding. Her Star Wars inspiration had changed, not disappeared. She says, “Initially I got sad at the realization that I would not be the one to design starships [but] I also realized that starships still need code!”
This new motivation to pursue coding led Ivanna to hackathons. She discovered them in her first year of college but found them intimidating. In her second year, she found the courage to attend one. She was surprised by how welcoming everyone was at her first hackathon, HackGT, in Fall 2019, and she immediately assimilated into the community. She went from not completing a project in HackGT to winning the overall best project at the 2021 HackHer event.
Ivanna learned many lessons from her hackathon experience. She made mistakes, and she saw the support and camaraderie of the hacker community that helped her instead of discouraging her. She also saw how technology could influence all kinds of change and that tech can bring ideas to life.
This realization that her coding abilities could make an impact motivated Ivanna to do more. Her first move was to apply to TechTogether to join their team, and they selected her as Technical Director of TechTogether Atlanta. She was surprised but helped organize it flawlessly and saw the reward of putting on a successful hackathon, especially in the faces of the participants. She says, “It was truly heartwarming to see everyone having fun and attending the events that everyone worked so hard to organize.”
Ivanna went on to apply to the MLH Fellowship, and in her brief time so far as a Fellow, she has thrived. She has found the fellowship supportive and is looking forward to working with the community in this new role.
With all these achievements, perhaps Ivanna’s most impactful actions have been to support underserved hackers. She says, “As a first-generation student from a low-income household, a person of color, and a woman, I have struggled to find representation and find people I can relate to.” As a result, her role in the community shifted from hacker to organizer with a goal to influence as many unsure hackers as she could to pursue a future in coding. She says, “I hope that my story serves to inspire other people that will come after me and remind them that while it is not easy, it can be done.”
