Painting the success story of Team CODE CHARISMA in Myntra hacker-ramp WeForShe hackathon- By Anika Jagati from VIT, Chennai

“Our team CODE CHARISMA didn't manage to win or bag any of the positions but being the National level Finalists among the top 7 teams out of the 1000+ teams who participated, was in itself a very huge achievement for us.” says Anika Jagati from VIT, Chennai.

Myntra hacker-ramp WeForShe 2021, a competition specially designed for women coders, gained a lot of footfall as it provided many women the opportunity to gain exposure and play with codes. Let’s hear it from the National Finalist team CODE CHARISMA about their experience of the competition.

A competitive journey full of challenges

After our idea was shortlisted in Phase one, we made sure we worked on every minute detail right from working on the prototype to properly documenting it all up for the submission and also ensuring our presentation during the pre-finale. The most challenging part was Phase two (implementation) where we would attend classes all day and stay up late during the night, working on our model and bringing it to life. Working virtually for college projects and events over the past year has almost become a habit, nothing very unusual. This hackathon was also one of the same kind.

The strength of the team

We all had different points of view but we paid heed to everyone's ideas and were on the same boat throughout the event. Most importantly, we as the team never stopped believing in ourselves and our ideas. Also, during the finale, we did not get intimidated after seeing the previous teams' presentations and still spoke and presented our idea confidently.

Seeing our team name displayed in the results section after each round was truly very special and made us believe that we were going in the right direction. Moreover, when it comes to the tough competitor, we believe every team had worked hard to get in the finale so it would be demeaning for others if we chose one and called them a tough competitor. Thus, every team was unique in their way and had given their best shot to be where they were.

Biggest learning takeaways

This hackathon has bestowed a whole different level of confidence in us as being a national level finalist was not at all easy and being able to get this far was no less than a major confidence boost. Another learning from this hackathon was judgement quality after each round and also during the finale was insightful as it covered all the aspects of the prototype and not just the technical complexity of the solution provided. Hence, it left us with so many valuable inputs to make our learning experience wholesome.

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