Each August, VMware opens its doors to a select group of women studying computer science and engineering at our CodeHouse event. As usual, open source was front and center in the CodeHouse 2019 48-hour hackathon, as teams competed to build applications running on Kubernetes that advance either STEM education or Diversity and Inclusion in the tech industry.
This year’s hackathon marks the first time VMware hosted two events: Palo Alto (VMware’s headquarters) and Atlanta. Twenty women pursuing advanced degrees attended CodeHouse Palo Alto while another 20 Black and Latina women pursuing Bachelor’s degrees gathered for CodeHouse Atlanta.
In preparation for CodeHouse 2019, attendees learned to build Docker containers and received an introduction to Kubernetes and the running of containerized apps in kind (Kubernetes in Docker). For many, this was their first time using containers, and interest ran high in building out microservice-based apps instead of traditional monolithic apps.
Everyone really prepped for the event, and it showed during the 48-hour hackathon in which four-person teams created and packaged new apps and mapped services together. Part of this process involved learning to run stateful apps (databases, etc.) and link to third-party services for data extraction, modification, and storage. Perhaps most importantly, though, attendees learned to work together in an intensive environment.
Each team benefitted from a VMware employee assigned to serve as their mentor. Mentors assisted with brainstorming ideas and scoping projects to ensure time efficiency while also helping resolve any technical issues and answering questions. For the hackathon’s technology direction, Jonas Rosland and Jorge Castro from VMware’s Cloud Native Apps team were the tech leads.
On the last day of the CodeHouse 2019 hackathon, each team presented their final project to a panel of VMware judges. Presentations consist of an application demo, an explanation of the technologies used and a quick preview of possible future project use cases. Although the technical expertise exhibited was impressive, the judges were even more impressed by the passion each team exhibited for their projects.
That alone continues to make VMware CodeHouse a great experience for everyone, and we want to extend our sincerest gratitude to all of this year’s attendees for making it a huge success.
For a first-person point of view from one of Palo Alto’s winning attendees, check out Drusti Thakkar’s post on LinkedIn! If you want to join VMware CodeHouse next year, applications for Atlanta and Palo Alto open up in early 2020. Keep an eye out for updates!
Stay tuned to the Open Source Blog and follow us on Twitter (@vmwopensource) for all the latest open source news and updates.
