During Hackbright Academy’s immersive and rigorous 12-week software engineering fellowship, students build impressive web apps in just 4 weeks! Get ready to be inspired by these amazing women, people who are gender-diverse, and their allies, sharing their creations ranging from trip planning to ride sharing apps that showcase their unique personalities.
Ada Cohort
Adriana Rivera
Adriana graduated with an undergraduate degree in computer science. After graduation, she worked for seven years as a Software Engineer and Lead Developer programming mostly real- time systems in C++. After a career break to take care of her young family, she took on several courses online through Coursera including a Data Science Specialization to revamp her career. She is putting the final touches to bring it all together with the addition of full-stack web development skills. Adriana looks forward to joining a team where she can bring her engineering talents and strong interest in data science. She loves traveling, and has some backpacking stories to share.
Hackbright Project: Emotional Tweets App
Emotional Tweets Map is a website where users can discover the location and sentiment about a term in the Twitter Universe. Currently only for the United States, users can enter a word or phrase and the tweets will show in the form of a heat map and a scatter plot. It uses the Twitter API to get the most recent tweets, gets their location or calculates it with the help of Google Maps. Finally, analyzes the text using Google Natural Language API to obtain the sentiment of the tweet: positive or negative.
Technology Stack:
Python, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Ajax, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, Bootstrap.
APIs Used:
Twitter, Google Maps, Google Natural Language.
Amanda Morris
Amanda has a BS in Mathematics and an MA in Linguistics, and has worked as a linguist in Natural Language Understanding for the last seven years. She currently works as an Analytical Linguist at Google, collaborating with software engineers and researchers who are working on NLP. She began picking up programming knowledge as part of her daily work, and found she enjoyed writing Python scripts to manipulate linguistic data files. Amanda looks forward to using her analytical skills and aptitude for language in her first software engineering role. In her free time, Amanda enjoys playing cards, solving crossword puzzles, and playing piano.
Hackbright Project: Relishd
Relishd lets users save and organize their recipes. A complex recipe search enables you to search recipes by keyword, dietary restriction, cuisine type, and dish type. Users can save recipes for later, and define their own labels to group recipes into categories, like ‘potluck’, or ‘thanksgiving’.
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python, Flask, Javascript, JQuery, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
spoonacular
Blerina Aliaj
Blerina received a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Central Florida with a focus on microelectronics. She then worked as an ESD (electrostatic discharge) engineer at Maxim Integrated where she developed her skills for designing ESD power circuits and device libraries. While working on automating measurement and simulation data collection, Blerina was introduced to Python and quickly was drawn into the world of programming and Hackbright. After Hackbright, Blerina plans to continue building her skills as a Software Engineer and exploring her strong interest in machine learning.
Hackbright Project: Hikr
Hikr is a web application that helps users organize group hiking trips. Those who like adventure can create trip profiles and share the planning process with other fellow adventurers via a collaborative interface. A user can create a trip and invite friends to participate in the trip planning. The built in chat enables real time coordination, while a To-Do list helps track and assign action items needed for the trip. The application is loaded with all of California’s hiking trails and a trail discovery map widget makes it possible for users to find trails in the vicinity of an area of interest. Users can add points of interest along the route which can be labeled and shared.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, PostreSQL with PostGIS, OpenStreetMap (OSM) dataset, Javascript, JQuery, AngularJS, Bootstrap, SocketIO
APIs Used:
Google Maps API
Cristina Rodriguez
Cristina has 15+ years of experience in communications and managed Internet tools applied to journalism. She recently worked as a project manager at a software company where she gained her first experience with Python. As the manager of the Python team, she worked closely with engineers and clients. After this role, she invested six months to learn web development, from the basics of HTML and CSS to server side programming, building her own ecommerce site for crochet figurines that she made as her hobby. After learning how to build web apps, she looks forward to incorporating more skills to her knowledge as a software engineer, especially in JavaScript and React, to build mobile projects.
Hackbright Project: LostPet
LostPet is a React app that aggregates information about lost dogs and cats in San Francisco. The lost pet data is collected from Craigslist and displayed on a map. Users have the ability to get in touch with the owners of lost pets. They can also report a lost pet directly on the app, by filling out a form and uploading a picture. A search feature allows users to look up lost pets by date, species, and the description.
Technology Stack:
Python, Scrapy Framework, SQL, Flask, JavaScript, React, Google Maps API, npm, Browserify, Babelify, Envify
APIs Used:
Google Maps API, my own Rest-API.
Dena Metili Mwangi
Dena graduated from Duke university with a MA in economics focused on international development. She has spent the last few years working as a data analyst supporting various think tanks deciphering surveys and piecing together narratives from streams of data concerning the lives of the poor. Most recently, she worked for the World Bank’s impact evaluation team assessing the bene ts of improvements to rural roads in Rwanda. While on this project, she got to experiment with Python while researching various dashboard solutions and fell in love with programming. Dena hopes to combine the strengths of her analytical background in economics with the powerful tools of tech in her upcoming roles as a full-stack software engineer.
Hackbright Project: YelpMe
Hate trudging through dozens of reviews when deciding on a business? Bubble Reccs is an app that combines the powers of natural language processing using TextRank and data visualization using D3 to synthesize millions of yelp reviews into a set of keywords and short summary. This gives users a quick snapshot of each business allowing for quicker decisions. Once a choice is made, users may get directions, text themselves business info using Twilio, or request Lyft cost and time estimates.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, Javascript, JQuery, Ajax, Postgresql, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Google, Twilio and Lyft APIs were used.
Emily Need
Emily graduated from Clemson in May 2016 with a Masters in Physics. Her research on planet formation, while still something she keeps up on, wasn’t as enjoyable as the scripting and computer modeling she was doing for it. Deciding to change things up, Emily began applying to software engineering positions, but quickly found out that her self-taught skills could only take her so far. Looking for a way to reinforce and build her skills, Emily came to the Bay Area to begin a fellowship at Hackbright Academy. After her program nishes, she is excited about nding a full-stack position that uses her coding and physics/math skills. When not coding, Emily spends her time reading, writing short stories, baking, and playing video games or D&D.
Hackbright Project: EXP reviews
EXP Reviews is a site for video game reviews akin to Rotten Tomatoes. Users can search for games, developers, and franchises; add and update reviews; check out the critics’ reviews; look at screenshots, trailers, and gameplay videos; and receive personalized game recommendations based on their previous reviews and a set of user demographics. This demographic breakdown is also shown on each game page to allow people who aren’t site users to get a sense of whether or not this is the game for them.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, AJAX, Bootstrap, Unirest
APIs Used:
IGDB, Api er, Chart.js
Erika Azabache
After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Erika specialized in integrated circuits and, subsequently, worked at Freescale in Brazil. Then, she moved to Canada to get her master’s degree in integrated circuits design. Throughout her professional life, while she mainly worked in the hardware stages of a project, she would closely interact with the software stages, which she had always found interesting. After moving to San Francisco, she joined the fellowship program at Hackbright. She looks forward to combining her engineering background with her passion for software as a software engineer. When she’s not learning new skills, Erika is usually reading a book in one of her favorite spots in the city.
Hackbright Project: One City at a Time
This app allows users to search points of interest in a city. The results are displayed as a list and a map. If the user is registered, has activated her/his account and is logged in, she/he can save their preferred spots for future trips and mark places they have already been, which will be shown in the user’s pro le. The user can see more details about any location and comment in the location’s page.
Technology Stack:
Flask, PostgreSQL, jQuery, Bootstrap, Jinja, Python, Javascript (AJAX, JSON), HTML, SQL.
APIs Used:
Foursquare, Google Maps, Imgur, Bing Image Search.
Gina Iliff
Gina loves exploring the underlying structure of how things work, and applying her discoveries in creative ways. It began with cooking, where she earned a degree in food chemistry, learning the fundamentals of food at a chemical level. That knowledge gave her scienti c precision when it came to designing recipes. When she moved to San Francisco, she immediately connected her fondness for creativity with the joy of engineering, and began self studying Python, HTML and CSS. Gina’s passion and rigor for learning led to a great opportunity to accelerate her growth at Hackbright, and now she’s seeking ways to apply what she’s learned.
Hackbright Project: Trip Assistant
Figuring out how to spend limited time in an unfamiliar city can be a challenge, and travel guides don’t take you far from tourist destinations. Enter Trip Assistant, a web app to help you find things to do, see and eat in the city you are visiting based on your personal tastes. Trip Assistant combines the Yelp API with collaborative ltering to learn about what restaurants and activities you like, and it will get smarter the more you use it. It will then recommend you the name, rating, category, and link to the recommendations’ Yelp page if you want to learn more. You can add trips, generate recommendations, and save them to your trip profile.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, JQuery, Flask, Jinja, SqlAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Crab (Scikit Learn and Scipy framework), Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Yelp
Jennifer Lee
Jennifer studied Human Biology and Dance at Stanford University. She is fascinated by how the human mind and body work, especially in the emotional expression through dance. After graduating, she conducted biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health. Jennifer was applying for medical school when she was diagnosed with Leukemia, and she is thankful to be healthy now. From this experience, she decided to no longer pursue medicine and worked in Health Advocacy at a health-tech startup. While using Python to manipulate hospital data, she discovered programming is a process she really enjoys. After Hackbright, she looks forward to further engaging in her curiosity through technology while building her skills as a software engineer.
Hackbright Project: MyPillbox
MyPillbox is a tool enabling patients to keep track of their medications with ease to better ensure medication adherence. This user-friendly app allows users to conveniently log medication information, view which medications they need to take each day, and schedule text reminders. By tracking a user’s adherence history, MyPillbox can help improve the patient-provider experience by enabling patients and doctors to better ensure compliance with their treatment regimen.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Javascript, JQuery, AJAX, JSON, HTML, CSS, Jinja, Chart.js, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Twilio
Joanne Yeung
Joanne graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Cell Biology. She entered tech as a software project manager in healthcare working with development and product teams to troubleshoot issues and create a better user experience for her clients. Her curiosity and drive to deliver a great product led her to learn JavaScript/SQL to acquire a deeper understanding of how and why software works. It was then she realized she wanted to expand her skills to directly impact the product by creating software rather than passing along issues to developers. Her special interests include sharing software that is private, secure, and is UX friendly. While not coding she is globetrotting or in her test kitchen concocting new recipes and brewing kombucha.
Hackbright Project: Investable
Investable is a research tool for individuals looking to purchase rental real estate. Intended for smart investors, this app compares personal mortgage rates to average rent rates within the surrounding neighborhood of the point of interest. Using the estimated rental worth on the market, it helps users instantly determine which properties might bring in rental income. Users can search by address or region or use Google Maps directly to find a home of interest, and can filter down search results by number of bedrooms, bathrooms or the home listing price.
Technology Stack:
Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, SQLAlchemy, GeoAlchemy2, Flask, Jinja2, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Scrapy, BeautifulSoup
APIs Used:
Zillow, Google Maps
Kathryn Rowe
Prior to Hackbright, Kate could be found tromping around the woods looking for birds and salmon. Trained as a wildlife biologist, Kate has been working for environmental organizations for the past 10 years. She loves problem solving and found this skill very useful when working for small nonprofits. Her introduction to programming came during her Master’s in GIS program when she used Python to solve complex spatial analysis problems. Kate hopes to combine her love of maps and problem solving to software development. Her next step includes further honing her fluency with coding, building her skill base, and pursuing a career as a software developer.
Hackbright Project: Tell Me About the Birds
We’re constantly surrounded by birds, and as they migrate, the frequency of sightings fluctuates. If we can better understand where birds spend most of their time, we can take steps to protect these key locations. “Tell Me About the Birds” is a visualization tool that allows users to explore data from the largest citizen-science dataset in the world (eBird) to better understand where birds have been sighted, when they are most abundant in various locations, and which other species may be present.
Technology Stack:
Python, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, JSON, Flask, Jinja, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, D3
APIs Used:
Mapbox and DuckDuckGo
Kikelomo Otutuloro
Kikelomo first stepped into web development through editing and creating layouts for her social media account as a child. That interest stuck with her up through adulthood, and she really began teaching herself to program as a hobby in her spare time in college. After finishing her Bachelor’s degree in nursing, she made the decision to pursue her interest in coding more seriously and moved to the Bay Area to attend Hackbright. She is looking forward to applying what she has learned and working as a full-stack developer.
Hackbright Project: Consa
Consa allows users to nd concerts in their area for artists based on their musical interests. Authorize your Spotify account, and Consa will determine your musical interests from your account’s top artists and find more related artists using the Spotify API. No Spotify account? No problem! If you don’t want to use your top Spotify artists, you can choose specific artists to use as starting points for your concert search instead. Consa will then use the Songkick API to search for upcoming concerts for these artists in your selected metropolitan area. Users can save the concerts they are interested in attending and keep track of them on their profile where they can also view the concert’s location using the Google Maps API.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Jinja, Javascript, jQuery, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Spotify, Songkick, Google Maps
Kushlani Jayasinha
Kushlani graduated with a PhD. in Physics. While studying for her PhD, Kushlani first wrote software to integrate laboratory instruments. After graduating, she continued on as a post doctoral fellow in a parallel Physics lab. After she moved to Silicon Valley, she was introduced to C++ and realized she wanted to pursue a career in software engineering. Kushlani worked as a software engineer for Thermo Fisher for 3 years, where she wrote software for a scientific instrument. She took some time to raise her family and pursued a more flexible career in Visual Art. She has had shows in San Jose, San Francisco and New York. Now that her children are grown, she is ready to head back to the tech industry to pursue her passion in writing software.
Hackbright Project: ArtAnnounce
As an artist, I have always found it to be essential to share my artwork with the public. This app is designed for any artist, gallery owner, patron or fan to do it with ease. The user is able to add artwork to a database with different fields, e.g. artist’s name, genre, medium. Using this database the user can pick the artist, the genre and the particular artwork from a visual list. The user can then share the image on Twitter and Facebook, with an appropriate self generated caption, with a click of a button.
Technology Stack:
Uses database model for users, artists, patrons, fans, artwork and artwork info. Uses Flask, SQLalchemy, Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Ajax, jQuery , Twitter and Facebook APIs to publish artwork.
APIs Used:
Twitter, Facebook
Laura Mahoney
Laura is a Bay Area native who studied architecture at UC Berkeley. After graduating, she did independent architectural design work, and went on to work as an architectural associate at KTGY Group. She has five years of experience producing detailed construction drawings, problem solving through design development, and working with engineering and design professionals. While working, she became inspired by technology’s ability to improve everyday life and increase creative potential for designers. She started teaching herself coding, discovered she enjoyed the process of debugging and solving puzzles, and is excited to use these skills as a software engineer. Laura enjoys spending time with family, running, and volunteering with dogs.
Hackbright Project: Pupdates at The Barn
Pupdates at The Barn is a web application for animal shelter volunteers to communicate with each other and organize data about the dogs they take care of. Volunteers can add general shift notes, as well as a “Pupdate Report” – a report on an individual dog’s progress in behavioral and social skills. On the Pupdates homepage, volunteers can review general notes from the most recent shift before starting a shift. Volunteers can also access each dog’s intake data, most recent Pupdate Report, and a graph of the dog’s closest playmates. Knowing which dogs get along the best is critical, and graphically indicating which dogs play well together makes it easier for volunteers to quickly make decisions about playgroups.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Jinja2, HTML, Javascript, jQuery, AJAX, Chart.js, D3, Bootstrap, CSS
Lindsey Lonne
Lindsey has over 15 years of experience in the technology field developing and supporting world-class enterprise security products from inception to maturity. She recently became a Software Engineering Fellow at Hackbright Academy in order to deepen her knowledge of modern web programming frameworks and tools. After graduation, she looks forward to applying her passion for software and breadth of experience to a new adventure.
Hackbright Project: PaveRave
PaveRave is a social web application that allows users to enter a vehicle license plate and leave comments regarding that car. Users can subscribe to alerts about their car, so you don’t have to drive around all day with your gas cap open. You no longer need to follow that person who cut you off , just to make sure they know how you feel. Leave them a message here, and keep the PaveRave online, and off the streets.
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python, Flask, Jinja2, Javascript, JQuery, Bootstrap, AJAX, JSON
APIs Used:
JQuery Libraries: DataTables, jquery-comments, argon2, pygeocoder
Olivia Bettaglio
Olivia studied biopsychology in university, curious to learn about why humans interact the way they do. After graduation, she worked in youth education, teaching math and writing to elementary school students. She was particularly interested in how people interact with the languages they create. Soon, Olivia became interested in how people interact with computers, and she began studying everything she could reach on programming languages. After completing Hackbright’s fullstack Python development course, Olivia hopes to combine her knowledge of human patterns and behavior with her Python skills and a strong interest in natural language processing.
Hackbright Project: KhanLine
KhanLine is a data access tool for teachers who use technology in the classroom. Users register by connecting to their Khan Academy coach account. Course sections contain student and exam information. Using D3, KhanLine creates tabular and visual analytics showing the relationship between student progress on Khan Academy and performance on in-class exams. As a teacher adds a student’s score, the graphs dynamically update with the new data. With this tool, a teacher can easily see the specific videos and exercises that are related to student success, making future lesson plans more effective than ever.
Technology Stack:
Python, D3, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Flask, Jinja2, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, HTML/CSS.
APIs Used:
Khan Academy.
Peiyan Zhao
Peiyan graduated from Lehigh University where she double majored in Finance and Business Information System. She joined an ad-tech startup in San Francisco as a product manager right after graduating. She was leading a R&D project that could eliminate enormous amounts of manual work from campaign tracking. She started writing some script in the beginning and eventually built a web application that helps account managers build campaign structures automatically, which is already saving the company $20k/month of labor cost. She saw how huge of an impact writing code can make and how much she could help others, so she decided to join Hackbright to transition her career to be a software engineer.
Hackbright Project: Polyfood
Polyfood allows users to quickly identify the category, price range, quality and popularity of the restaurants within a custom designed polygon region on the map. Users can draw/edit/move multiple polygons directly on a map, the app then displays restaurants within each polygon area and filter out restaurants based on type of food, restaurant’s rating, and many other filters. It also allows the user to compare the results by interacting with D3 built animated graphs.
Technology Stack:
Python, Javascript, D3, Flask, Pandas, Numpy, HTML, CSS, SQLAlchemy
APIs Used:
Yelp, Mapbox
Sridevi Angalakudati
Sridevi graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Accounting. After graduation, she worked as a fund accountant at State Street Bank where she provided fund balance information to traders and produced NAV values to Wall Street Journal. Before pursuing her degree, Sridevi took Visual Basic programming and got exposure to the world of computers. Due to family reasons, she took a break from her career. After moving to the Bay Area, she became interested in pursuing a career in software development. She started self- study and held a contract position at Wells Fargo, where she worked with SQL and SAAS script mapping. After Wells Fargo, she joined Hackbright and looks forward to building her skills as a software engineer.
Hackbright Project: Temple Quest
Temple Quest is an application that allows users to search temples in the United States. The purpose of Temple Quest is to provide a tool for users to search for temples, view details, and post their personal experiences. The app has profile pages for each temple, where information such as the address, phone number, and a map via Google Maps API are displayed. On each temple page, users can also rate the temple services and post comments. In addition, the user can choose to save the temple. On the user’s profile page, users can see the links to the temple pages they saved. Users can also see the ratings and comments that they left for temples. In a later phase, Temple Quest’s search capabilities will be expanded to all places of worship.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, JSON, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Google Geocoding API, Google Maps API
Stephanie Boyette
Stephanie brings creativity and innovation everywhere she works. She has 20 years experience in numerous fields from highly rigorous technical areas as NASA and Defense satellites to management, and commercial sales/marketing. From working across various industries, she easily relates to and communicates well with others on all levels within a company. Over the years, she often provided technical support for organization computer systems, but recognizing that computer systems are the wave of the future, she decided to gain more knowledge of underlying software and systems. She’s excited to bring her previous technical experience along with her software engineering skills from Hackbright to her next role as a software engineer.
Hackbright Project: WikiPen
WiKIPEN is a web app that seves as a historical collection of data on vintage pens. A pen collector that is in the know can upload images and information about a pen or pen company, edit and search for specific posts. The intention behind WIKIPEN is to preserve, for posterity, historical information that is often handed down word of mouth and may be otherwise lost.
Technology Stack:
Languages|Python, Javascript(AJAX, JSON), HTML, CSS|Frameworks/Libraries|Gunicorn, Redis, Flask, JQuery, Bootstrap, Jinja|Database| PostgreSQL
Yvonne Young
Yvonne graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Cognitive Neuroscience where she was first introduced to programming. After graduating, she worked at an architecture firm, which allowed her to develop essential management skills. She has also worked with a variety of clients through her experiences at UC Berkeley and The Bar Method. She finds roles that allow her to positively impact others at a personal level to be most fulfilling! Yvonne is excited to bring her professional skills and passion for helping others to the tech industry. She is particularly interested in the non-profit sector and passionate about education and the medical/health fields.
Hackbright Project: SaFe Route
SaFe Route provides conveniently displayed walking directions on a map overlaid with dynamically queried crime report data. Users will have multiple routes to choose from and will be able to analyze a week’s worth of corresponding crime incidences. SaFe Route also provides cost and ETA for a Lyft. If a user decides the risks are too high along the routes, s/he will be directed to Lyft’s website to request a ride. In addition, users are able to lter data (by type of crime, day of the week, time of day and/or police district) in a separate map to view crime data in SF as a whole. SaFe Route is a must-have for users to make informed decisions regarding their safety. Knowledge is power…the power to help you stay safe!
Technology Stack:
JavaScript, jQuery, Python, Flask, SQL Alchemy, PostgreSQL, HTML, CSS, Jinja, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Google Maps, Soda Consumer API (for Socrata Open Data), Lyft
Grace Cohort
Amanda Crawford
Before attending Hackbright, Amanda was a Fitness Consultant, managing fitness studios, teaching other instructors how to teach, and teaching various styles of fitness classes herself. She also piloted an online Yoga class. That class lead her to think about how she could reach out to more people. Around the same time, she was introduced to programming through the Hour of Code. She quickly realized that programming was the answer to her reach problem. After following her curiosity through self-study, she became a Software Engineering Fellow. During her time at Hackbright, she developed a love for databases and data structures. She is excited to continue learning new things and to develop her current skills at her next job.
Hackbright Project: Fog City Hiking
Fog City Hiking is a web app that brings together weather, trail information, and reviews for Bay Area hikers. On the homepage, each city has its own climacon that summarizes the weather condition for that day, making it easy to compare cities at a glance. Finding the perfect trail for the day is difficult, so a search function has been implemented to make it easier. Hikers can input a city, desired hike length, or total elevation to receive up to 5 trail recommendations. Each recommendation comes with photos, reviews, and trail attributes. Hikes can be saved with dates and details of a hiker’s experience or bookmarked for later use. Saved or bookmarked hikes will show up on the hiker’s profile page.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, Flask, SQL, SQLAlchemy, JQuery, AJAX, Jinja, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Transit and Trails, Dark Sky, Yelp, Google Maps
Ashley Brooks
Before Hackbright, Ashley was a technical product manager. While she spent her days managing software engineers, by night she taught herself new skills like programming to better understand the engineering problems her team was running into. As much as she enjoyed managing product builds, Ashley became more fascinated by how the engineers were implementing features rather than what features they were building. In every meeting she would write down key words she’d hear the engineers use, taking note to google them when she got home. As a true autodidact, she used her Hackbright project as an opportunity to self- learn React, and looks forward to exploring her curiosity in lower-level programming next.
Hackbright Project: Autodidact: A Self-Learning Organization Tool
Autodidact is a platform to help users organize their self-learning curricula. The app is architected using a client-server model: a Flask-Python API on the backend and a React- powered front end. Users can create topics, collect links to articles, videos, books, and websites, and then organize the content into an drag-and-droppable, ordered curriculum that works best for their learning style. Users can mark the content items as complete and view a data visualization of their progress.
Technology Stack:
React, Flask, Python, Javascript, ES6, AJAX, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL
Christina Mei Ngook Westbrook
Christina is a developer and 3D designer born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She enjoys quality time with her friends, family, and cat. Previously, she ran a small business utilizing 3D printing for product design and managed an online storefront. As a designer with a BA in 3D modeling, she enjoyed creating 3D objects from initially basic ideas and building on them. Upon realizing how creative coding can be, she became interested in the challenge of programming. She hopes to soon have some awesome side projects that integrate designing code with designing in 3D for 3D printing.
Hackbright Project: Project Miniverse
Project Miniverse is a site that allows users to share low resolution 3D printable les. Once a file is uploaded the user can view and interact with a 3D representation of their 3D model. Users can upload renderings or photos of their creations. Users can optionally share their 3D models by giving permission for other users to download them.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, AJAX, JSON, HTML, CSS, SQL, Flask, jQuery, three.js, Bootstrap, Jinja, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy
Elizabeth Goodman
Prior to Hackbright, Elizabeth got her Ph.D. in Mathematics at Stanford. During that time, she also worked in a variety of teaching positions on campus and as a mentor for fellow graduate students. Although she enjoyed research and teaching, she is most excited by the teamwork ethos evident in the tech industry, and she hopes to put her math and programming skills to use in a full-time backend software engineering role.
Hackbright Project: Library List
A user provides a list of books they would like to read, and the app searches the San Francisco Public Library online catalog, to determine which of these books are available in each branch.
To select books, a rst-time user provides a link to a Goodreads bookshelf; the app gets the list of books via the Goodreads API, stores them a PostgreSQL database, and begins searching the SFPL catalog via scraping. If the user makes an account, their booklist is saved, and they can optionally add books by title and author or remove books. On the final page where the user can select branches by name or location, recently updated books in the database are displayed first, then out-of-date books are updated via AJAX calls.
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, Python, Flask with Jinja2, Javascript with JQuery, AJAX, CSS with Bootstrap, HTML.
APIs Used:
Goodreads, Google Maps (embedding and geocoding), web scraping of the Bibliocommons API (as they only allow access to librarians).
Grace Durham
Grace graduated from college cum laude with a degree in Business and HR. She has 10 years of experience in the insurance industry where she served as an underwriter, corporate trainer and claims adjuster. These experiences developed her analytical and decision making skills as she often reviewed and evaluated reports related to insurance qualifications. She was inspired to become an engineer because of her passion to build. She looks forward to applying her insurance skill set with her computer science education as a full stack software engineer after Hackbright. When not at the computer, she is watching Neflix documentaries or exploring SF nding new places to eat (which she’s been doing since she moved here in 2009).
Hackbright Project: Shoe Spotting
Shoe spotting was created to entertain. It’s a fun way of posting shoes from the web and commenting on them. This app allows users to comment on their own posts and also comment on the posts of others. It’s a great way of tracking shoes you’ve discovered on the web, and optionally tracking how much they cost. It’s like Pinterest for shoes!
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, AJAX, JSON, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, python unit tests
Jennifer Grace
Jennifer graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Animal Biology. After college, she worked as a vet technician and animal rescue manager. Although she was on a pre-vet medicine track, she was intrigued about coding after volunteering with a research group that built a web tool to help farmers. Seeing the direct impact that technology could have on solving a real world problem, Jennifer decided to pursue a career as an engineer. She began to immerse herself in coding, including completing an Intro to Programming Nanodegree, studying coding challenge problems and even built her own website while keeping herself afloat as an animal caregiver. She is now at Hackbright to make her full transition into software engineering.
Hackbright Project: Endless Pawsibilities
Endless Pawsibilities provides a service for animal rescues to create their own webpage. It is intended to give animal rescues a way to gain more exposure to the public and have a modern system to accept donations through PayPal. Each animal rescue can manage their content on a private dashboard. Public users can then search the rescues available on my web app and check out what animals are available for adoption. Contact information of each rescue as well as information about the animals at their rescue are displayed for potential adopters.
Technology Stack:
Flask, Python, Jinja, Javascript, jQuery, AJAX, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy
APIs Used:
PayPal
Jessica Appelbaum
After getting her undergraduate degree in Digital Media Production, Jessica spent several years working as a producer and editor in the New York City startup scene. While contracting for a company that creates video tutorials about coding, she found a previously undiscovered passion for programming. Following months of self-study and exploring online resources, she decided to study programming at Hackbright Academy and pursue a career in full-stack engineering. Now, Jessica is seeking a full-time role at a company where she can apply her creative problem solving background with her software engineering skills.
Hackbright Project: Book Bingo
Book Bingo allows users to create customizable bingo boards in which each square represents a genre. Upon reading a book that is one of those genres, the user can enter the book’s information into the corresponding field, and the app connects to the Goodreads API to find the book’s description. When a user has read five books in a row (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally), they get bingo! Users can set personal reading goals by playing on their own, or play with friends by inviting others to share their board. If a user is sharing their board, they can see the descriptions for the books their friends have read in each category, and keep track of how many books each player has read on that board.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, JavaScript, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Ajax, jQuery, Jinja, Bootstrap, HTML, CSS
APIs Used:
Goodreads API, Plotly
Laurel Kline
Laurel graduated with a degree in Philosophy, but her internship at Borland led to a career in high tech immediately after graduation. Later, as a Technical Writer at eBay, she wrote pre-release test cases to verify the APIs worked as intended and wrote code samples to illustrate how to use new features.
As a Technical Evangelist, she got to shape eBay’s APIs more directly. She worked with developers in the eld to understand what they needed, translated that into technical specs, and then educated developers on those changes.
On her own time, she tinkers with different technologies to better understand what her developer customers are working with. This led her to Hackbright where she’s now building her own killer app.
Hackbright Project: Developer Program Dashboard
A dashboard that allows Developer Program providers to better understand the performance of their APIs, the effectiveness of their outreach, and the overall health of their program. It is written to take in data from a variety of sources including API calls, call logs, and CSV files. The raw data is then combined to give a full picture of the program with insights that can drive action. Assorted chart types help the customer visualize meaningful intersections.
Technology Stack:
Python, PostgreSQL, Flask, Jinja2, SQLAlchemy, JavaScript, JQuery, chart.js, morris.js, vmap, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Twitter API – https://dev.twitter.com/, Klout API – http://developer.klout.com/
Lauren Pritchett
Lauren chose to attend Hackbright Academy after discovering a passion for agile development while working closely with engineers to resolve software and data bugs in her role as an account manager at a tech startup. She wants to work at a tech company in a team environment where she can contribute alongside others and continue to learn from other engineers.
When Lauren is not coding, she spends her time reading, seeing concerts, traveling, and discovering delicious new restaurants.
Hackbright Project: City Sights
City Sights is a web app that makes it easier for users to plan where they will take photos in a given city before traveling there. Users can search the city they will visit and see the most interesting photos taken in that city from the Flickr API. When they select a photo that they like, they will see the photo location and a map with directions from their chosen starting address. Users can save photo locations to their profile and remove them if they have a change of heart.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, Flask, HTML, CSS, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python ickrapi library, JQuery, Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Flickr, Google Maps
Mariia Gracheva
Mariia graduated from Moscow State University, Departments of Math and Mechanics, with a specialization in Topology and Differential geometry. She has always enjoyed logic and math puzzles. 3 years ago, Mariia moved to Washington State and worked as an analyst and project manager, collaborating closely with engineering teams. After a few short pauses in her career to raise a family, Mariia is now making a career change to software development and is ready to focus her energy on contributing to an engineering team. In her spare time, Mariia enjoys ice skating and spending time with close friends and family.
Hackbright Project: HelpAround
HelpAround provides easy access to varied and detailed information about volunteer opportunities in San Francisco. Users can search for a volunteer category (literacy, animals, homelessness, etc.) and lter by time, with an option to display only currently open opportunities. Opportunities are displayed on a map to help the user decide which locations are most convenient.
Technology Stack:
HTML, Python, Flask, Javascript, AJAX, jinja2, SQLAlchemy
APIs Used:
VolunteerMatch, Google Maps
Marina Cottrell
Marina Cottrell is a recent graduate of McGill University with a degree in Music Theory, where she also worked as a Research Assistant for a music technology lab. During her time as a Research Assistant, she worked to build python frameworks for music analysis. Marina is most passionate about the intersection of music and technology — she is currently at Hackbright to deepen her software engineering skills, and she will soon be starting a masters in Music Technology at Stanford in September 2017. Before then, Marina is seeking a full time summer 2017 internship that would allow her to learn and contribute to a software engineering team.
Hackbright Project:
This app provides a keyboard interface for a user to play tunes on. When the user hits submit, the app will generate accompaniment to the tune, based on chords that it has learned from a variety of Classical pieces. It will then display the score for the finished song, play the audio and let users save or download their new creations.
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Python, Pandas, sklearn, music21, Flask, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, Vex ow, Bootstrap
Melissa Boyer
Prior to Hackbright, Melissa explored different industries, including administration and photography, as employment in the different areas she lived. After settling down in the Bay Area, Melissa decided to finally pursue a career that would be intellectually challenging, allow her to grow, and apply her problem solving skills. She dove into python, using Learn Python the Hard Way, attending SF Python meetups to learn from others, and participating in PyBay and PyLadies events. These experiences solidified her interest in the creative and analytical aspects of coding, and ultimately led her to Hackbright. Now, she’s seeking a full-time full stack engineering role at a company that fosters innovation, learning and growth.
Hackbright Project: RoadTripper
Born from a love of travel and the open road, Road Tripper is an app that takes a user’s starting and ending location, builds a drive route, and suggests park and restaurant stops along the path. Users can see the Yelp rating for each roadside attraction through the app results, and follow links directly to the location’s Yelp review page. Bay Area users also have an option to view suggestions using a D3 map. Finally, any user may save road trip searches for later adventures.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, Jinja, JavaScript, AJAX, Bootstrap, D3, Selenium, PostgreSQL
APIs Used:
Google Places API, Yelp API
Michelle Berry
Michelle graduated from Stanford University with undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology and earth systems. Afterwards, Michelle spent two years leading a research project that applied cutting-edge genomics technologies and biostatistical methods to solve a major drinking water health crisis. During the course of her research, Michelle taught herself how to write data pipelines with R and bash to analyze massive DNA datasets. Her love of learning new coding concepts and technologies led her to Hackbright Academy. When she’s not coding, Michelle enjoys hiking, yoga, and scrabble.
Hackbright Project: Product Genius
Product Genius enables consumers to make data-driven decisions about products. Most online shopping sites display a product’s average rating, which can be misleading for products with few reviews. Product Genius implements its own rating system, using Bayesian averaging, to present a more robust metric to the consumer. Product Genius also aggregates useful information from customer reviews, using machine learning to extract the most relevant terms from positive and negative reviews of a product. Finally, users can search within a product’s reviews and favorite the most relevant ones, to assist with side-by-side product comparisons.
Technology Stack:
PostgreSQL, Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, NumPy, scikit-learn, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, Bootstrap.
Monica Burgos
Graduating from Harvard with a degree in Math and desiring more opportunities to stretch and grow, Monica began her career as an actuary. Though the field abated her inclination for analytics and fed her hunger for knowledge, she soon realized her passions were only ever stated in the rapture of designing and creating her own problem solving tools. Longing for more drove her to the precipice of software engineering. She jumped. Independent learning launched into evening classes which cascaded toward the nal plunge of enrolling full-time at Hackbright. Joyfully immersed in the curriculum, she eagerly pursues a career based in creatively overcoming challenges and developing ingenious solutions within a culture over owing of team spirit.
Hackbright Project: GoTeamGo
GoTeamGo is a workout tracking and accountability app in which users can log workouts and set goals in terms of the number of workouts they want to accomplish per week. Users are also able to create groups, join groups, and set group goals depending on what permissions they have been granted. GoTeamGo tracks your progress towards your personal goal as well as progress towards goals for any groups of which you are a member. It also allows you to view your friends’ and groupmates’ progress- that’s where the accountability comes into play.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, JQuery, Ajax, Jinja, Bootstrap, Python Unit Tests
APIs Used:
Plotly
Olivia Knott
After graduating from Vassar College with a degree in English, Olivia Knott taught high school English before leaving the education field to pursue a more challenging career in operations. Because of her ability to develop and implement solutions to complex problems and create workplace efficiencies, Olivia was promoted frequently and ultimately ended up as an Operations Manager. At Waiter.com, Olivia designed and managed development of the company’s first mobile app. In working closely with the developer team at a tech startup, she realized that she would like to advance her technological skills beyond just using databases and software to actually creating them and decided to pursue a career in software development.
Hackbright Project: Mustang Map
Mustang Map visualizes government data on Mustangs and presents a user-friendly view onto otherwise inaccessible data. The source data has been imported from heterogeneous government data into a PostgreSQL database, which is then served via a Python application using Flask, SQLAlchemy, and ask-RESTful to make the data available to both the website and third party applications. Mustang Map uses Google Maps to present relevant geographic data converted from the original government-supplied GDB format into standard geojson. Non- geographical data is visualized via the Highcharts library. In addition to static government data, the site allows users to log in and upload pictures of mustangs and associate those pictures with specific herd areas.
Technology Stack:
Python, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Flask, Flask-RESTful, Javascript, bcrypt, Jinja2, jQuery, Highcharts, Bootstrap, HTML CSS
APIs Used:
Google Maps, Facebook
Oxana Matveyuk
Oxana graduated from Moscow Aviation Institute as an engineer of control system automation, where she took classes including computer science, statistics, probability and mathematics courses. While at school, Oxana worked at MIG airplane factory as a software engineer and helped to create an internal accounting system. After graduating Oxana worked as Chief of Back Office at Interbank Financial House. She saw the company’s many manual processes and used her development skills to build an automatic contract tracking system. Oxana then moved to the US, spent time raising her family, continued her CS education at SFCC, and became a TA in her computer science classes. Now, she is looking to get back to working full time as a developer.
Hackbright Project: Cinemania
Cinemania helps movie lovers discover movies. The application suggests a movie at random adding an element of serendipity. Suggestions are driven by the user’s genre preferences and popularity. When a user lands on the movie page, the user sees the movie description, ratings and reviews, the trailer, links to actor and director Wikipedia pages, links to Netflix and Hulu, and a visual graph displaying relationships between the main actors and director. The app stores a history of the movies discovered as well as the ratings the user gives any movie. To provide personalization, users have the option to sign-in with e-mail and password or Facebook OAuth.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, JavaScript, D3, jQuery, AJAX, Jinja2, Bootstrap, HTML5, CSS3
APIs Used:
Themoviedb, Facebook (OAuth)
Rayhana Ziai
Ray is originally from England, where she graduated with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. She previously worked as an analyst in Lloyds Banking Group in a rotation program that allowed her to analyse large data sets, ultimately building new financial products as a result. Ray also got exposure to the tech startup scene by attending various hackathons. One hackathon in particular, led to her founding and building her own startup. While running her site, she worked closely with the developers and became increasingly intrigued by the problem solving challenges they ran into. This led her to Hackbright, where Ray wants to solidify her programming skills and combine her analytical background into a full-time software engineering role.
Hackbright Project: Easy Pay
Easy Pay is an app that holds money on behalf of transacting parties who have met over the internet. Its mission is to help consumers avoid scammers who ask for payment before the consumer has had the chance to verify the product. Both consumer and seller can view and agree to a contract which will determine the date and amount of payment to the seller providing he/she adheres to the terms outlined. Once agreed, the consumer will then send the money to Easy Pay, who will hold the funds until payment day when it will be automatically sent to the seller (providing the terms of the contract have not been broken).
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, AJAX, JSON, Jinja, Javascript, JQuery, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap.
APIs Used:
Stripe, Mailgun
Renee Balmert
Renee graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a double major in Latin & Greek (and a deep love of linguistic structure) before heading to the bay area. She worked for many years with a private equity team in a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ role – EA/O ce Manager/Tech guru. She built their very first website, redesigned their CRM and quickly fell in love with the many tech projects that crossed her plate. She started studying HTML, SQL, and JavaScript on her own, before entering the Hackbright Fellowship.
Renee is a voracious fan of film, animation, TV and comics. She has volunteered at the Cartoon Art Museum for almost 10 years, and has attended innumerable industry events – ComicCon, SIGGRAPH, CTN eXpo, and Pixar fundraisers.
Hackbright Project: flix2comix
A web app to introduce newcomers to the world of graphic novels. The user rates some movies to help build a preference profile, and then the app finds a comic that most closely matches. Comics are for grownups too!
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, JavaScript, jquery, AJAX.
APIs Used:
The Movie Database, ISBN Database, Bechdel Test
Signe Henderson
Signe Henderson is a recent graduate of Brown University with a degree in computer science. While at Brown, she developed strong discipline and time management skills as she was a competitive rower on the varsity women’s crew team. During her sophomore year, she also interned at a technology company, supporting the engineers with testing and bug fixes. After graduating, Signe came to Hackbright to solidify her ability to apply her software engineering knowledge. Now, she’s looking to kick off her career as a full time software engineer.
Hackbright Project: songs.append()
My project is a collaborative curated playlist app where users can create playlists and connect them to a group of friends who can then have input on what gets added and removed through up votes and down votes.
Technology Stack:
Python, JavaScript, Flask, SQL, SQLAlchemy, JQuery, Bootstrap, Ajax
APIs Used:
Spotify API with Python wrapper Spotify
Smitha Ballal
Smitha was raised in the Midwest and began her professional life in the media industry, where her passion for content creation led her first to writing and television production. While she *loved* getting up at 3am every day as a producer on CNBC’s Squawk Box, she eventually left to seek a more challenging career. Post-MBA, she joined Univision as a product manager, where she managed the digital music assets of the Spanish-language media company. Working with the development team, she saw the trifecta she had been looking for: creativity, analytical rigor and career development. When her husband’s work brought her family to SF, Smitha decided it was time to take the plunge into programming.
Hackbright Project: Democrazy
Inspired by our tweeter-in-chief, Democrazy allows users to get to know their elected officials by combining officials’ legislative voting records and twitter functionality. The result is a platform where the user can learn about a politician’s policy positions and interact with him or her directly.
Democrazy helps the user to be better informed and more engaged – in a short-attention- span/140-character kind of way.
Technology Stack:
Python, Flask, Postgres, SQL Alchemy, HTML/CSS/Bootstrap
APIs Used:
Google Civic API, Propublica
Sumaiya Talukdar
Sumaiya graduated from the Emory University College of Law with a Juris Doctorate and Georgetown University with a Bachelors of Arts in Government. She developed a passion for technology at the Kapor Center for Social Impact where she worked to make the tech ecosystem and entrepreneurship more diverse, inclusive, and impactful as the Director of Strategic Innovation for the Level Playing Field Institute.
She is excited to leverage her unique background in technology, social impact and law in building awesome products!
Hackbright Project: Escape Trump’s America
Escape Trump’s America helps users gure out potential countries to relocate to for the duration of the current administration! The user can register, interactively filter a map of the world with country-specific factors (including cost of living, level of pollution, amount of traffic) and view comparisons of countries side by side.
Technology Stack:
Escape Trump’s America is written in Python, JavaScript, and HTML/CSS with the use of Flask, jQuery, AJAX, JSON, SQLAlchemy, Jinja, and Bootstrap.
APIs Used:
Escape Trump’s America uses the Google Geocharts API for interactive map functionality, Numbeo for crowd-sourced cost of living data and Flickr for showcasing country-specific photos.
Vivian Lin
Vivian graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelors of Science degree in Business Administration. After working and interning for two years as an external auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers and attaining her CPA license, she decided to pursue her passion for optimizing efficiency in the software engineering field. Her love for Excel logic translated into love for algorithms and Python data structures. She looks forward to building her experience as a backend software engineer after Hackbright. When she’s not at the computer, Vivian enjoys alternating non- fiction and fiction books to read, learning more about culinary arts, and traveling around the world.
Hackbright Project: Rewards Programs Mapping/Tracking
Koi allows user to add, delete, and update their point balances for reward programs (credit cards, hotels, and airlines). Koi maps out how the programs relate to each other, provides the transfer ratios, and tracks all of the user’s transaction history. The most distinguishing feature of Koi is its ability to optimize transfers. First, the Bellman-Ford algorithm evaluates the possible transfer ratios of all paths, then, with its own internal logic, Koi determines the optimal way to transfer between the programs to arrive at the goal. The maximum attainable balance is returned even if the goal cannot be reached.
Technology Stack:
Python, PostgreSQL, Javascript (D3, Chart.js, AJAX, jQuery, DataTables), Flask (Jinja2), HTML/CSS
APIs Used:
Internal database only.
Zoe graduated from University of California Santa Cruz with a Bachelor’s Degree in Astrophysics. She got her first taste of software engineering with an Intro to C class she loved. After graduation, Zoe worked in an Astrophysics research lab where she enjoyed work on the command line and digging into documentation. She then transitioned to working at a medical office where she greatly improved her interpersonal skills, all the while continuing her love of programming by taking 3 Java classes at the local community college. The more classes she took, the more she realized her passion for the logic and problem solving of engineering. Now, she’s at Hackbright and is seeking an opportunity to continue solving problems on an engineering team.
Hackbright Project: Bowl Full of Stars
Bowl Full of Stars generates images of the night sky at a user input date, time, and location. It uses google maps to auto fill latitude and longitude so that the user can input a city or landmark. Four images – North, East, South, West – are generated along with a constellation lter. Star and constellation information is available on mouseover.
Technology Stack:
Flask, Jinja, Python, CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, jQuery, Ajax, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy
APIs Used:
Google Maps