#14 – Sabeen Ali – Hackathons creating Social Impact & Technology for Good

Doing Good Podcast by Amra Naidoo

About the episode

On the show today we have Sabeen Ali, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Angelhack - the world’s largest and most diverse hacker community. AngelHack, a female-owned, female-majority company helps drive open innovation of tech products, platforms and brands with extraordinary smarts, scale and speed via tech education, marketing and hackathons. Prior to AngelHack, Sabeen founded (and then sold) her own leadership training and organizational development company, Team Building ROI. She has also consulted for companies like Yahoo!, and Cisco. Sabeen is someone who i very much personally admire. I especially love how she is working to bridge the gap between the tech world and the social world, which have up until quite recently been very seperate. Even today, the social world can be very slow to adapt new technology, much to the sectors disadvantage. Sabeen is also someone who is very much a role model for getting more women in to technology and is also a champion of making this happen quicker. Angelhack is actually one of the case studies that I use quite often when people tell me that it is too difficult to have more women at a tech event or in their organisation. Anyway, I think it’s best we get in to the show so that Sabeen can tell you more about her work!

Favorite quote from episode:

“Everything has the potential to change the world and create positive momentum” – Sabeen [21:55]

People/ items mentioned in this episode:

UNited We Hack

Angelhack

Angelhack & World Bank Hackathon

Lady Problems Hackathon

Hacking The Hashtag – Taking Back #LadyProblems

Angelhack’s Hackcelerator

Sabeen’s TEDx Talk

B Corporation Certification

Benefit Corporations

Tesla

Get in contact with Sabeen on Twitter or at her Website

Show notes

• “The average hackathon’s female participation rate is 4%” [03:25]
• Sabeen chats about what Angelhack does and how hackathons are a platform for innovation
• “We’ve been focusing on expanding the skillset of the people in our community and broadening their own understanding of what technology can do and what it can accomplish, and that’s brought us to a lot of inclusivity and social good events” [05:45]
• What is a hackathon and how does it work? [06:20]
• How does Angelhack use hackathons to create social impact? [09:45]
• Sabeen chats about four barriers for female entrepreneurs [14:25]
• Do Good Ventures & Hackcelerator Program [20:00]
• How does Angelhack measure impact? [22:20]
• “If you can do more, then do it” [26:10]
• Sabeen takes us through the journey of starting up Angelhack [30:55]
• The future of hackathons for the public sector [35:15]
• What Angelhack is working on now [38:30]
• Sabeen, what do you love about what you do? [40:00]
• How to get started in tech for good? [41:40]
• What’s next for Sabeen and for Angelhack? [46:20]
• Three Things [50:00]

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode?

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