MentorMe wins the Share Award at 2019 UBC Local Hack Day!

My first-ever hackathon, UBC Local Hack Day, was full of fun. My team and I beep-bop-booped so hard and won an award! ☺️

At the 12-hour hackthon, my team used Figma, Javascript, HTML, Python Flask, and CSS to develop a web app called MentorMe - a co-working space where programmers and designers can find hacking opportunities to showcase their skills, get feedback, and potentially get recruited!

Ideation

At LHD, a group of 4 female hackers started wrapping their heads around this year's theme of ‘diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility.’ We asked the following question to ourselves:

Why are we spending our valuable weekend to hack🤔?

Because we are students eager to start a fun, interesting project to develop our technical skills. Skills that will help us land a job in the future.

However, learning new software and technology can be intimidating if you’re starting alone. Not everyone can have the opportunity to participate, and not everyone gets into the industry of tech through the traditional avenue of university. This is where MentorMe comes in.

MentorMe enables programmers and designers to discover hacking opportunities across the world, find a team to hack with, showcase a proof of concept, and get recognized by professionals.

How does MentorMe Promote "Diversity, Inclusivity, and Accessibility"?

• 🦋 Diversity - MentorMe celebrate diversity - a project can be worked on a different language and across time zones

• 🦋 Inclusivity - MentorMe has no barrier. In our safe virtual co-working space, everyone can bring their talents regardless of their identity & level.

• 🦋Accessibility - The virtual co-working space doesn’t require access to a personal vehicle or public transit infrastructure. We hope to maintain the website to be accessible for those with screen reading.

Changing the one-directional job application process

In addition to being diverse, inclusive, and accessible, MentorMe aims to make a job application process for tech-related jobs into an interactive learning opportunity.

Let's say someone is applying for a developer position at Uber:

Before MentorMe:

Submit Resume ▶️ Online Quiz ▶️ Coding Interview (by call)

▶️ In-person Behavioral Interview ▶️ Get Accepted or Rejected

*If rejected at any stage, difficult to get feedback

After MentorMe:

Sign up & Upload Resume

▶️ Complete MentorMe Project created by Uber

▶️ In-person Interview

*Feedback is provided throughout the project cycle

Traditionally, when rejected, it was difficult for applicants to get feedback. With MentorMe, however, having industry members directly involved in the project cycle will make it rewarding for both parties with hirings and learning, regardless of the application results.

Implementation

Ta-da! Meet MentorMe. A virtual co-working space for developers/designers of all levels.

Homepage🏠

Key Feature: Log-in & Explore Mentorme

Dashboard (Manage Your Projects) 🎯

Key Feature: View your active projects, Manage updates and to-do list.

Project Library (Explore Available Projects)🔎

Key Feature: Filter out projects by discipline & skills

Project Details (Register for a Project) 💻

Key Feature: Enter a project, find/form a team

Technology Specification

The UI was developed using Figma. We used resources in the Material Design UI Kit to quickly visualize a style, then added further design elements to suit the functions of our web app. We also developed a proof of concept by integrating Python Flask into what would traditionally be a Javascript, HTML and CSS-only app (Check us out in GitHub!). We created Javascript elements such as filters, searches, buttons and forms, and combined the filter feature with the search feature.

In terms of further applications, our project can be extended to any area of remote skill-sharing and mentorship and doesn’t have to be exclusive to the world of software development. We also considered adding more functions to the web app to facilitate collaboration i.e. enabling add-on features to help users to link MentorMe with GitHub and other task & project management software.

Reflection

We were happy that all of us brought our own skills and talents to the group. We all met each other for the first time, and we are proud that we got along with each other very well :) We taught each other new concepts, such as using the "Inspect" feature to analyze website elements, exporting images in Figma, and working with the command line and git. Last but not least, our project won the Share Award for successfully embodying the Share pillar of LHD!

Summary

🍎 Product. A Web App (UI & PoC)

🍏Competition. UBC Local Hack Day - Build Day

🍊Total Hrs Spent. Nov 30th, 2019 10am-7:30pm

🥝 Team. Jenny Kim, Jocely Tang, Isabella Lowe, Serena Ramley

🍋 Tech Spec, Figma for UI, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Python Flask for PoC