📣🚨 Why Are 8 Guys Deciding the Direction of Tech and Healthcare at the HCL Better Health Hackathon?

It’s hard to even know what to say about this HCL Better Health Hackathon. The description asks people to “lend [their] ingenuity to healthcare and help the world feel better,” stating that “better solutions aren’t born in isolation but out of great collaboration,” and that “this collaboration has been the essence of all human innovation.”

During the two month idea submission time frame, participants will receive “mentorship, healthcare and industry advice, as well as technical support and resources for [their] project from numerous companies,” but do you know who will be providing all of that support and advice before ultimately choosing the four winners? These eight guys. Nope, your eyes are not deceiving you. We’re wondering if HCL and Principal Partner Microsoft even checked with event Community Sponsor Women Who Code before choosing to amplify the opinions of yet another group of men. As you can imagine, we’re really hacked off by this!

The only good news is that there is plenty of time to correct this and add women to the panel of judges and advisors. We’ll be watching to see if that happens.

HCL and Microsoft should know better. Tell them this isn’t okay.

‪📣🚨 #CodeForCovid19 claims to want to “lend [their] ingenuity to healthcare,” but there’s not much ingenuity in yet another #manel deciding #tech and #healthcare’s future. @hcltech and @Microsoft, where are the women? cc: @WomenWhoCode #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/hcl-better-health-hackathon