It looks like November is shaping up to be an event-packed month with various hackathons / coding challenges taking place at UH, Rice, and near UHD in the EaDo area.

To participate in Mo’ Code Movember you will want to join the official Facebook Event and view the contest rules!

Seeing these events laid out, I can’t help but notice the natural progression it proposes for participants.

Assuming you are female, every one of the events above brings attention to Women in Technology when you participate! It’s also a great time to encourage group involvement and learning by hosting workshops that coincide with any of the events listed above.

Ok, so what exactly is a Mo’Code Movember? This is a month-long event hosted by CougarCS @ the University of Houston which aims to bring quality to the typical 24-hour hackathon format, by using a month-long running format with weekly check-ins, while enforcing that submissions themselves are checked-in to Github. We want to teach and encourage proper software engineering practices over quick and dirty mish-mashing of API’s. Have an itch you need to scratch? Mo’Code Movember is the opportunity to get it done!

CodeDay Houston is a 24-hour event where students passionate about technology get together and build cool things together! You pitch ideas, form teams, and build a cool app or game in 24 hours! The best projects will even be rewarded with prizes. The event is open to highschool and college students and boasts participation form 27 cities around the US!

Hacktoberfest is Hackathon with a tip of the hat to fall, Octoberfest, and Bavarian flare! If you work in interface design or graphic design, or you currently build websites, apps, and services, you are probably a good fit!

3 Day Startup is an entrepreneurship education program designed for university students with an emphasis on learning by doing. 3 Day Startup teaches entrepreneurial skills to university students in an extreme hands-on environment.

Let’s assume you are a CS Student and you have an awesome idea you have been dying to work on. Maybe you just want to try coding something challenging or just to learn what all this development stuff is all about because you are new to the scene. You could vet that idea at the Mo’Code Movember kickoff and learn everything you need to know to get that code placed up on Github where it can be properly maintained (KILLER resume line!). The next day, you bring your idea out to Codeday Houston and find some like-minded individuals who you recruit to your project, you bang out a minimally viable product, and you end up placing in the top 5! Next week, you take it out to Hacktoberfest and get the UI polished by the wonderful design divas who will be in attendance. Sweet, thankfully you had visions of grandiosity early on so you beat the October 28 deadline to sign up for 3 Day Startup. You bring your baby out and discover some pals in the business school who prove out your product using market analysis, product validation, and other things you never considered. You pitch the idea that Sunday and see a clear vision now on what you want to do. The following week you showcase your project to the most difficult audience of all, your family at Thanksgiving dinner, and they provide you feedback that everyone before was scared to share! Taking into account those nitpicky suggestions Uncle Jeff gave you, you incorporate them into your project and show off a polished product at the Mo’Code Movember showcase. You now have invaluable experience at what it takes to be an idie developer OR maybe none of this happened but you learned invaluable skills along the way! Oh and bonus if you are female, because you did all this and represented women in Technology!

Full text schedule with hyperlinks:

October 11 to December 12:

International Women’s Hackathon – http:// iwhphx2014.challengepost.co m/

November 7:

University of Houston Mo’Code Movember Kickoff – A Github hosted month-long competition where creations will be showcased at UH on first month of December

November 8 & 9:

Code Day Houston – https://codeday.org/ houston

November 13:

Mo’Code Movember Checkpoint

November 13 to 14:

Hacktoberfest – http://hacktoberfe.st/

November 20:

Mo’Code Movember Checkpoint

November 21 to 23:

3 Day Startup – http:// uofhouston.3daystartup.org/ – APPLY BY OCTOBER 20!

November 27 to 28:

Thanksgiving Holiday – Show your family the awesome thing(s) you created and add those finishing touches!

December 5: Mo’Code Movember Showcase – Show your colleagues the awesome thing(s) you created!