Etsy programer does user testing with a seller. Photo used with permission.
On Saturday, we shared the news about Etsy providing ten lucky programmer women five thousand dollars to attend Hacker School. Today, we have the whole story direct from the source. I interviewed Marc Hedlund from Etsy and Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock from Hacker School to get more details about the grants, the partnership between Etsy and Hacker School, and why Etsy wants more women in technology.
First, a little bit of background. Etsy is of course the Internet giant of handmade goods, a marketplace which we all know and love. Hacker School is a small project-oriented school where programmers can become better programmers in a safe non-judgmental environment.
Hacker School works in three month sessions, each hosted from various locations in New York. For the session of summer 2012, Etsy offered to host forty students for Hacker School, double the number of students in this current batch. Not only that, but Etsy also offered to contribute ten $5,000 grants to women who were accepted in Hacker School. While Hacker School is technically free, the grant money can be used to finance the students’ expenses while attending Hacker School in the Etsy headquarters in New York.
[To read more about this opportunity, read the rest of Ariane Coffin’s post over at GeekMom!]
