As a college student, I have found that undergraduate internships often serve as the stepping stone to a successful career. Every student dedicates lots of time to perfecting their resumes and sharpening their interview skills in order to land their ideal internship. Getting hired as an intern at a firm that you admire or in a role that fits your desired career path is an exciting feeling, and you are eager to expand your network, learn from your mentors, and contribute value to your team.

Three years ago a dear friend sent me a link to an article. “This sounds up your alley,” she said. It was about an initiative to get high school girls into programming. As a female software engineer who went through her computer science classes surrounded by men, I was intrigued.

Clearpool hosted its first development team hackathon this month, bringing together our team of technologists for a day dedicated to coding, creativity and complex problem solving. A few days prior to the hackathon, members of our software development and quantitative analysis teams were paired up and the eight teams began brainstorming ideas. The requirements for each team’s “hack” were that it benefit the company in some way and that they take only one day to come up with their proposed solution.