A hackathon for women’s soccer

Usually there’s a lot of talk about getting women into coding. So this is slightly different, it’s a hackathon aimed at encouraging women into playing soccer.

Football Federation Australia, in partnership with Coder Factory Academy and Node Girls Australia, will be hosting the first digital Hackathon aimed at fostering and creating innovation for Women’s Football.

The Hackathon will take place over a weekend during Female Football Week, with participants spending their time creating and developing digital solutions that could be used to help improve the experience for girls participating in football and the Westfield W-League fan engagement.

Participants of the Female Football Week Hackathon will tackle one of two challenge areas:

  • • To improve the ability, access and pathway for females to become involved in the game of football as a player, coach, referee or volunteer; or
  • • To bring football fans closer to the action and enable greater digital fan engagement with the Westfield W-League.
  • To uncover trends associated with Westfield W-League match stats

FFA’s Head of Community, Football Development and Women’s Football, Emma Highwood, believes that the Hackathon is a fantastic, innovative way for girls to be introduced to football through the digital medium.

Playing football and participating in this Hackathon share something in common. They both involve high speed problem solving to achieve an end goal. Our goal for this event is to get the participants to think about football in a different way to which they probably have in the past.

The Hackathon will be held from 17-19 March in Ultimo. Nominations are open at footballaustralia.com.au/hackathon with the application window closing at 11:59pm Thursday 9 March. The Hackathon will be capped at 150 participants and successful applicants will be notified on Friday 10 March.

Nominations for the Female Football Week Hackathon are open to both females and males over the age of 16 years. Participants of all skill levels are encouraged to nominate, as they are looking for a mix of computer programmers, product and project managers, user experience designers, subject matter experts, and football fans.

There’s a lot to be said for this initiative; but what stands out for me is that it’s about using your coding skills in a different environment that the usual hackathon. Should be a lot of fun.

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