In Hackbright Academy’s immersive and rigorous 12-week software engineering fellowship, students built impressive web apps in just 4 weeks! Get ready to be inspired by these amazing women and their creations ranging from trip planning to ride sharing apps that showcase their unique personalities.
Ada Cohort: September 2017
Brigid Walsh
Brigid has spent many years teaching creative coding languages to all different age groups and skill levels. She also spent two years as the technical founder of a Smart Jewelry startup company based in New York and San Francisco. Her experience in starting a company from the ground up, helped her develop many new technical skills, as well as knowledge of the Bay Area startup industry. In the future, she looks forward to working as a full-stack developer who can lend her design skills to dev teams at large local startups and world class companies based in the Bay Area. Brigid holds a BFA in Multimedia Design from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, as well as an MS in Integrated Digital Media from NYU Tandon School of Engineering.
Hackbright Project: Mixed Feelings
The Internet can be a scary place in which people are apt to forget that behind that username is a person with real feelings! Mixed Feelings is a web app that aims to remind people to be kind to their fellow humans, while also giving them a place where they can take a second to be mindful of their own feelings. MF prompts the user to fill out information about their current emotional state. The app then uses sentiment analysis to poll Twitter and Giphy for text and image related to their current feelings. Once they have spent time reflecting on how they are feeling, a user can then also take a look at how other users are feeling by looking at a map of other saved results that are color coded based on emotional state.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, Jinja, JavaScript, JQuery, Ajax, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, NLTK, Tweepy, Textblob.
APIs Used:
Google Maps, Flickr, Twitter, Giphy
About Brigid Walsh
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Brigid has gained most of her technical experience through creative programming languages such as Arduino, Processing and Max/MSP. Her proficiency in these languages has come mostly through teaching, but she also has a lot of experience building hardware prototypes. She has also spent time in the hardware startup industry, learning the in’s and out’s of business development, product development and brand development.
Carolyn Webster
Hailing from the world of legal graphics and strategy, Carolyn brings a unique blend of problem solving and technical skills. While her career began as a graphic designer, she began to delve into building interactive tools and programs with Flash and got her first taste of coding. She then taught herself JavaScript and began to look at ways that code could help streamline her firm’s day-to-day production processes by building scripts that could be run in the Adobe Suite. Looking at workflow processes and seeing how they could be simplified or eliminated with the click of a mouse has become one of her greatest joys. She is looking forward to using her full-stack knowledge to build a wider library of tools to make people’s jobs easier.
Hackbright Project: Cut To The Point
Cut to the Point is a video trimming app built with the legal industry in mind. A user can upload deposition videos and trim out clips based on timecodes or page/line numbers, which is how transcripts are often cited. Clips can then be tagged for different phases of trial. They can be downloaded as a merged highlight reel, a zip of individual clips, or a PowerPoint deck. If the user provides a transcript, the matching transcript text can also be included on the PowerPoint slides. Cases can have many team members allowing for a division of labor. Case messages are implemented using socket.io which allows team members to quickly communicate case updates. Cut to the Point allows access to premium trial tools without the premium price.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, Socket.io, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Flask, Jinja, Bootstrap, MoviePy, Python PPTX, Boto3
APIs Used:
AWS S3 file storage
About Carolyn Webster
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
6 years of Actionscript (Adobe Flash/Animate)
4 years of JavaScript
Web Design (HTML/CSS/Bootstrap) – UC Berkeley Extension Fall 2016
Actionscript 3.0 intensive – Academy X
Charlotte Sarfati
Charlotte is currently a software engineering fellow at Hackbright Academy. Previously, she graduated from nursing school at USF, ultimately obtaining her RN license in September, 2016. During the program, she acquired 3 years of hands-on nursing experience in prestigious hospitals such as UCSF and Stanford, doing 12-hour shifts in specialties such as labor and delivery, ICU, and pediatrics. While she still believes nursing is one of the noblest professions, her transition to computer programming stems from her itch to become a “modern inventor”. The ability to unlock human potential through automation and the never-ending learning embedded in this industry perfectly align with her aspirations.
Hackbright Project: Aislander
Aislander is intended to automate a task we all spend too much time on: manually creating a grocery list. This project takes into account that we meal plan differently than we shop. A user can search for recipes, and append those recipes’ ingredients into one grocery list with a single click of a button. The grocery list is organized by aisle categories, saving users from scavenger hunting in grocery stores. Users can also bookmark recipes, which can be accessed in their profile page, and create many grocery lists, intended for meal planning purposes. By considering various permutations of how a user might interface with their data, this app creates a planning interface and a shopping plan where the priority is efficiency in the store.
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, AJAX, Bootstrap, Selenium
APIs Used:
Spoonacular
About Charlotte Sarfati
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
She completed Hackbright’s 2-month prep program to learn Python as her first programming language. Part of her nursing education also tapped into Healthcare Informatics, targeted at electronic healthcare record systems. Additionally, she participated in MedHackathon 2016, acting as a Healthcare consultant for software engineers. Lastly, she regularly attends tech meetups in SF such as those hosted by The Expat Woman, particularly those focused on diversity, inclusion, and UX design.
Colleen O’Rourke
Before Hackbright, Colleen was working in a product-facing role in the mobile gaming industry. She ran the day-to-day operations of a live mobile title, created new events in the game, was responsible for all revenue targets, and led the team to success. While she enjoyed that work, she found herself interested in the more technical side of game development. She also holds a BFA in technical design for fashion and has always enjoyed creative endeavors and problem solving, be it by hand or machine. She’s excited to combine her interests and background in gaming and fashion with the skills she’s gained in software engineering into a full-time position.
Hackbright Project: Game Recommendations
This app provides video game recommendations to users who aren’t sure what to play next. The user can make an account, rate games they like and don’t like, and get a recommendation based on which platform they want to play on, and which genre of game they’re looking to play.
Technology Stack:
SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Flask, Jinja, Python, IGDB API, schedule, unittest, Javascript, Chart.js, JQuery, json, AJAX, Bootstrap, HTML/CSS
APIs Used:
IGDB
About Colleen O’Rourke
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Took introductory C++, Java, VisualBasic, and HTML classes in college and completed Accelerated Prep program at Hackbright prior to Hackbright Fellowship. At previous job built automation tools via Google Sheets, ran deployment via Jenkins, and utilized Subversions via Versions.
Danya Dye
After graduation, Danya worked through several client-facing service oriented roles but always found herself gravitating back to data and creative problem solving whenever a project could be enhanced with its use. One of her greatest achievements was through crunching data to reveal she had increased participation in a client based program by 400% in 2 quarters. She hopes to use her full stack skills to not only create beautiful websites for the public to interact with, but also to increase seamless programming integration. She loves working on the back- end, building from broad strokes to tinkering with finite data in order to and hopes to bring her real world perspective to the technical side.
Hackbright Project: AccountaBill
This is an accountability partner in web-app form, that reminds users to check off objectives via text messages. Users are encouraged to set aside a specific amount of money they want to spend on something else (their prize). With each objective, users will earn their way towards their self identified prize.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, jQuery, Flask, AJAX, PosgreSQL, Jinja, SQLAlchemy, HTML, Bootstrap, Chart.js
APIs Used:
Twillo
About Danya Dye
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
She has worked in organizational roles supporting those in tech and is excited to build a portfolio. She can’t wait for a full-stack engineering role at a company that fosters innovation, learning and growth.
Deanna Gao
Deanna is a passionate advocate for social justice and has worked as a community organizer with youth from primarily low-income backgrounds. Through this work Deanna began to notice a major disparity: young people she was working with are a heavily targeted consumer base, but grossly underrepresented in the development of many of the technologies they use. This observation inspired Deanna to pursue her own knowledge, skills, and leadership in software development, as a tool to support community empowerment. Deanna will begin graduate studies at UCLA this fall, where her intensive software engineering training will be combined with her interests in statistics, data science, and public policy.
Hackbright Project: GWhatUG – Resource Sharing Application
A web application where users create an account and participate in an online community for resource sharing. Users can create postings where they can announce items to give away and/or items they are seeking. The app allows users to interact socially and to the extent of their resource sharing interests via private messaging, public commenting, user profile pages with user activity, and making requests to each other.
Technology Stack:
Python, Javascript, jQuery, AJAX, SQLAlchemy, PSQL, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Google Maps API
About Deanna Gao
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Previously enrolled in Hackbright’s Prep Program and did self-study using online resources e.g. codecademy.
Haven Giguere
Haven is currently studying software engineering at Hackbright Academy and learning full-stack development in order to be prepared for a career in web development. Before Hackbright, Haven worked for a number of years as a free-lance illustrator. She also created a business selling custom wedding invitations and it was during this time that she discovered programming. She used to do logic puzzles in her spare time and so when she realized that there was a job out there that might combine her abilities she decided to start studying. Creativity has been a huge asset in Haven’s journey to becoming a programmer and she hopes to utilize all of her abilities when she finds a position as a full-stack developer.
Hackbright Project: Plan-It
Plan-it, a responsive web app is a one stop shop for planning a day or night out. The user can login, look up events by location, keyword and category and then save any events that interest them. Based on the location of the event, the user is offered a choice out of three randomly selected restaurants. Once their event and restaurant are saved, the user has the option to email the details to a friend.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, Jinja, jQuery, SQLAlchemy, Ajax, HTML, CSS
APIs Used:
Eventbrite, Yelp, SendGrid
About Haven Giguere
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Python for Everybody: taken through Coursera; JavaScript Road Trip 1, 2 and 3: taken though CodeSchool; Interactivity with JavaScript: taken through Coursera; HTML, CSS, and Javascript for Web Developers: taken through Coursera; Front-end Foundations: taken through CodeSchool; Flying Through Python: taken though CodeSchool
Jenny Lam
Jenny recently obtained a certificate in computer programming at UCSC Extension. She completed the majority of the courses online, and wanted to get a more interactive and hands-on experience in the field of software engineering, so she enrolled in Hackbright Academy. Prior to this, Jenny worked as a bioprocess technician at Genentech. She also participated in rotational programs in developing a training program and automation engineering. Through those experiences, she realized she wanted to do more work involving creating and problem solving. She hopes to advance her programming skills further and have a career in software development in the future.
Hackbright Project: Present Finder
Present Finder is an application that helps users find presents for events based on their contacts’ interests. When the user enters a contact’s events and interests, a list of suggested presents will be generated. The user can bookmark presents, get notifications for upcoming events, see past presents they have given someone, and more.
Technology Stack:
Python, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, Ajax, Boostrap, Chart.js
APIs Used:
Amazon Product Advertising API, Mailgun
About Jenny Lam
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Obtained certificate in computer programming at UCSC Extension, completed online courses at Codecademy and Flatiron, completed Intro to SQL at Oracle.
Josephine Lipkin
Josie graduated Linfield College with a Bachelors in Studio Art, where she used a variety of media (woodworking, painting, printmaking, drawing) for her thesis show. Already interested in visual culture, she then became interested in Data Visualization, which she soon realized involved programming. She then graduated from Foothill College with an Associates in Computer Science, where she developed a computer science foundation. Unsure of how to meld theory with building and creating, she then found Hackbright to help her out.
Hackbright Project: Arts Trek
Arts Trek maps locations of public art around San Francisco and presents two options on how to visit them. One option allows the user to click on markers (representing public art) to curate a walk from art piece to art piece. The other option curates the walk for the user, by randomly selecting art pieces to visit. Arts Treks also allows for filtering the markers by the artist’s name.
Technology Stack:
Python,JavaScript(Ajax, JQuery), Flask-SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL
APIs Used:
Google Maps API, SODA API
About Josephine Lipkin
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Josie Lipkin received an Associates in Computer Science from Foothill College, where she took C++ programming classes. After, she attended “Girl Develop It!” meetings and workshops, learning a little bit about Javascript. She also took Udacity and Treehouse course online. She completed the Hackbright Part-time prep program in May.
Julie Norris
Julie worked in elementary education for over two decades providing instruction and support to students, teachers, and administrators. Through that experience she discovered strengths in identifying the nuances of a project and supporting others to understand. Despite having a successful career, her love of math and science never diminished and she decided to pursue a second career. In 2014, Julie began studying programming in her free time. She finally took the leap of faith and committed to making coding her full time pursuit by attending Hackbright Academy. Julie looks forward to working with a team as a backend engineer where her strengths can be brought to a team at a small tech company.
Hackbright Project: CarPool!
CarPool! built with the idea of busy mothers needing to shuffle children is a platform for car users to share seats with non-drivers. Using the Google Maps API, drivers can input start and end destinations, arrival time and date, and available seats, which then get saved as a route. Riders are shown seats available on a route when they input their data. After a driver and a rider are matched, the Twilio API connects users so that drivers and riders can confirm the arrangement and provide details. Built with busy mothers in mind, the app is useful in other contexts including: getting to a particular venue for an event; carpooling to public transportation stations; or getting a ride home from a university on holidays.
Technology Stack:
Python, Javascript, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Flask, Jinja, JQuery, Bootstrap.
APIs Used:
Google Maps, Twilio
About Julie Norris
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Introductory computer science courses in college and self-study prior to Hackbright, including several Codecademy courses.
Megan Dose
Megan graduated from Louisiana State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History. She has experience with multiple museum industry roles, serving as a registrar and curator intern with LSU’s Museum of Art and then as a tour guide and customer service associate at the Walt Disney Family Museum. These experiences have given her a wide set of practical skills that can transfer to the tech world, including strong organizational skills, the creativity to parse a large story to the specific needs of the different audiences, and problem solving on a day-to-day basis. She is looking forward to combining these skills with her newfound love of coding.
Hackbright Project: Xibbit
Xibbit is a tool for learning about some of the most famous masterpieces of Art History. It allows you to search a database (similar to IMDB for movies); create an account; and save your favorite art, artists, and museums to your user profile. Whether you are a student, teacher, or traveler, your profile will also map out where the art lives in the world, telling you exactly which cities and museum collections to visit to see the art in person.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, Jinja, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Javascript, JQuery, AJAX, Masonry, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Google Maps API, Google Cloud Vision API
About Megan Dose
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Prior to the Hackbright Fellowship, Megan took several Codecademy online courses throughout 2016 and 2017, mostly for Ruby and Ruby on Rails. She also completed the Hackbright Prep part-time course in April-May 2017 to learn Python. She plans on making a career transition from the museum industry to the tech world, but is also open to the possibility of returning to the museum industry as a software engineer that understands the unique needs of that world.
Michelle Luu
Michelle attended UC Berkeley where she studied psychology and did research in cognitive science and personality psychology labs. She enjoyed working with programs such as R to understand data and loved the precision and accuracy of coding. She became more interested in coding and studied various programming languages from codeacademy and freecodecamp. She’s interested in front-end engineering and game development.
Hackbright Project: SET Puzzle
The SET puzzle is similar to the well-known SET game for puzzle enthusiasts. There are 81 cards, and each card has 4 different attributes: color, shape, pattern, number. A user picks three cards and the program will check to see if all the attributes are the same or all different to find a set. If attributes are not all the same or all different, the user has not found a set, and will be asked to try again.
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, Ajax, Isotope, CSS, HTML, Bootstrap.
About Michelle Luu
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
freecodecamp, codeacademy, and computer science courses from Mill’s College.
Ramona Soderlind
Ramona’s prior experience includes an extensive foundation in administrative support, as well as a technical background in software programming building websites for small businesses. Before Hackbright, she temped for Robert Half and Scion Staffing as an administrative assistant. With her love of coding, she decided to switch careers to pursue her dream of software engineering full-time. Ramona looks forward to sharpening her technical skills. In the fall she plans to take an algorithm class at UC Berkeley Extension. Ramona also has an entrepreneurial spirit and her ultimate dream is to open a non-profit to teach economically disadvantaged people how to code.
Hackbright Project: Fashion Friend
Clothing search app that makes suggestions on future clothes purchases based on your searches
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery,Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Shop Style Collective: https://www.shopstylecollective.com
About Ramona Soderlind
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Ramona previously worked for World Savings Bank as a web developer working with JavaScript and HTML. She also has worked with small businesses to create bootstrap web sites. She also completed coursework in C.
Sarah Lamb
Sarah holds a Liberal Arts degree with a Music minor. Pursuing creative avocations on the side, she has worked in business administration. While learning new industries quickly – specific lexicons, procedures and technology – she also found an affinity for data analysis/reporting, streamlining systems, and creative problem solving. As software became more ubiquitous, customized, and cloud-based, Sarah noticed it became hard to find out-of-the box solutions, or a company willing to tailor one, to fit specific business needs. Rather than using her mad skills to create work-arounds, Sarah became interested in software engineering, to bring her business expertise to the development of more agile, comprehensive solutions.
Hackbright Project: Quirify
Quirify’s mission is to provide musicians, particularly Choral Directors, with all of the tools they need to manage their groups…in one!
And two… search for, upload, and store pieces, favorite editions of sheet music, and associated audio files, and keep them in a personalized virtual music library. And three… easy concert creation; from programming repertoire, to set-list assignments by performer and part, to generating your program notes for ticketing and print materials. And four… so much more: manage rosters and schedules, budgets, licenses, concert logistics, and historic data. Time..4/2..Quirify!
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, Beautiful Soup, AJAX, Bootstrap.
APIs Used:
MediaWiki API (for CPDL.org, a ChoralWiki).
About Sarah Lamb
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Sarah completed a preparatory course in python at Hackbright Academy, where she is currently pursuing a fellowship in full stack web development. She has completed online courses in python at codecademy. She has also done online modules on computer science, javascript, html and CSS at codecademy and Khan Academy. Back in the day, Sarah worked at a VAR, CTR Business Systems – one of her roles there was in order fulfillment for the sale of custom hardware/software systems.
Vera Milagro Arias Bolanos
Mila is a student at Foothill College, pursuing an AS in Computer Science, and has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Costa Rica. She is attending Hackbright during the summer quarter to continue building upon her foundations in computer science and prepare her for her next steps in her engineering career. Previously, she founded several businesses in Costa Rica. One is a Spanish and cultural immersion program for US students where she handled all of the outreach and logistics in the US. She looks forward to bringing her skills and interests in organization, problem-solving, localization and team work to her software engineering career.
Hackbright Project: Peers @ the Park
Parents and caregivers can post a date and time they plan to take their kids to a specific park. They can also look up a park at a particular date and time and will see how many kids are attending based on posts that other parents and caregivers have made. After looking at the results, they can make an educated decision about what park they will take their kids.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, Ajax, Flask, Jquery, SqlAlchemy, Psql, Bootstrap and Jinja
APIs Used:
Facebook login and Google Maps (Geolocation (current location), Places Library: nearby search of a specific place, Markers, Autocomplete search bar, Infowindows, ClickEventHandler, Referencing a place with a place ID.
About Vera Milagro Arias Bolanos
C.S. or Related Experience Prior to Hackbright:
Pursuing AS in Computer Science at Foothill College, Los Altos, Ca
BS in Computer Science from the University of Costa Rica
Computer Lab assistant at University of Costa Rica
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