Dialog’s Ideamart spearheads expansion of female developer community

 Ideamart Hackaholics 3.0

Ideamart, a platform for developers and content providers presented by Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s premier connectivity provider, has supported the expansion of the country’s female developer community by partnering with the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Student Branch Affinity Group of the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) as the ‘Official Technology Partner’ for Hackaholics 3.0, a female-only hackathon. The program aims to train and build the skillset of female undergraduates in the tech space island-wide.

Hackaholics 3.0 was rolled out in two phases, i.e. a pre-hack – where the main objective was to brief participants on the Hackathon and educate them on the usage of Ideamart APIs –  and the Hackathon itself. The event drew the participation of 15 teams where each group was required to create an innovative and sustainable product, enhanced by the use of Ideamart APIs. The top three teams were awarded cash prizes, with team ‘Codettes’ representing UCSC claiming the winning spot, team ‘Amigos’ representing University of Kelaniya being crowned first runners-up, and team ‘Ecoist’, also from University of Kelaniya, crowned second runners-up. 

Commenting on the event, IEEE WIE Student Branch Affinity Group of UCSC President Oshani Weerakoon said: “The IEEE WIE Student Branch Affinity Group of UCSC was incepted to improve women’s contributions towards electrical and electronic engineering amongst universities, while empowering women from all spheres of society to excel in their respective fields. We are excited to have conducted Hackaholics for the third consecutive year.”

IdeaMart MIFE Business and IOT Head Viranga Seneviratne said: “Ideamart is proud to partner an initiative that aims to encourage and empower women to excel in the field of tech. The development and contribution of resources towards ensuring the next generation of developers including this segment of the population is crucial to creating a sustainable, digital future for all Sri Lankans”.

Ideamart’s involvement in Hackaholics 3.0 further supplements the platform’s work towards creating a strong female developer community in the country, such as the launch of ‘Ideamart for Women’, a female entrepreneurship program initiated with the goal of improving the knowledge and skills of women in the industry. Through this, Ideamart conducts empowerment and guidance sessions, technology awareness sessions, mentoring, competitions, and 24x7 app development and marketing support, all while creating a platform that supports individuals, businesses, students and other women-related initiatives.