#NonStopHer: “As individuals, we tend to restrict our thoughts to the limited knowledge we have”, says Srujana Rangapuram, an Associate Software Engineer.

A few weeks back, I participated in WiT-ACE Hackathon, my very first as an employee. For someone who graduated in 2020 and has ever since been working from home, this Hackathon provided me with an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and several other things, of which some are:

Meeting people

Meeting and interacting with people, much less new people, is significantly less in the current situation. Participating in Hackathon allowed me to work with people I don’t usually work with. Getting to know them and where they come from logically and technically helped broaden my thoughts space and allowed me to reflect on multiple other things.

Innovation

The basis of a hackathon and innovation is a chance for us to turn our little thoughts of solutions into actions which we usually don’t. This Hackathon allowed us to provide a sustainable solution for the much-needed problem, climate change. After several discussions and brainstorming sessions that we had internally to reflect on the ideas we had, we agreed upon the concept of Ecosafe — Industrial water effluents monitoring Dashboard.

The process was a fresh breeze to the monotonous work we do daily.

Team building

As individuals, we tend to restrict our thoughts to the limited knowledge we have. But as a team, with people of varied opinions and mindsets, we tend to think in ways which we usually don’t get or try to. Throughout the three days of the Hackathon, we had several talks -from the idea discussion to the submission. The process was a fresh breeze to the monotonous work we do daily. It was also an excellent choice to have both female and male members of different backgrounds, experiences, and ages in the team, which allowed us to reflect on things we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Thanks to the beautiful work done by each of them, we were able to present our idea successfully and be the runners-up.

Solution

Arriving at the answer was not an easy task. There were several hurdles and several factors we needed to consider. Finding the necessary data, research on the topic and existing solutions related to it, technologies to use, open-source projects and tools to leverage, using IBM resources, etc., were a part of the process. Nevertheless, this made it even more exciting and fun to code and develop.

It made us consider not just the innovation part of the Hackathon we tend to focus on but also several other elements like sustainability, feasibility, technology, scalability, etc.

The whole experience was terrific, from the start till the end, giving us a chance to think and reflect on. It made us consider not just the innovation part of the Hackathon we tend to focus on but also several other elements like sustainability, feasibility, technology, scalability, etc. And it’s worth mentioning the organising team who were in touch at all times and provided the necessary help and info needed. Thanks to all of them, the whole process was smooth till the end. Looking back at the entire process and result makes it all worth it.

Author: Srujana Rangapuram (I’m a 2020 graduate, joined Optum Global Solutions in October 2020 as an Associate Software Engineer. My work involves me working with Angular and GraphQL regularly alongside other technologies.)

Connect with us on: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.