When we decided to launch our Lady Problems Global Hackathon Series, AngelHack wanted to ensure that we not only addressed the issues preventing female entrepreneurship, but also changed the negative narrative of what “Lady Problems” meant. When we met with Proctor & Gamble, we knew they would be the perfect fit to assist us in fulfilling those goals.
We know what you must be thinking. How does a company in the healthy, beauty, and home goods space help make a positive impact on female entrepreneurship in the tech space and change the narrative behind Women’s Problems?
Well first you have to realize that ladies problems are actually everyone’s problems. It’s no secret that women are a minority in the tech space. This totally limits gender diversity within companies, as well as creates a patriarchal hegemony where companies and employees don’t understand or address women’s health needs in the workplace.
P&G is helping us combat this by creating challenges at our events that focus on creating a technical solution for womens health issues. Check out the challenges below!
Challenge:
Create a mobile or web application to promote women’s health and self-esteem, that addresses at least one of the below categories:
- Empower women to manage their menstrual flow in a personalized, interactive way based on a scientifically proven Tampax algorithm.
- Guide women in caring for their skin problems to drive compliance that meets her personal skin care needs.
- Raise awareness for products and solutions that can support women’s sexual health as they age.
Pretty sweet right? We have seen some crazy interesting projects in the cities P&G has attended. These cities include London, Delhi, São Paulo, and Boston, and Barcelona.
The projects from these events have absolutely blown us away. P&G’s challenge was met with open arms and the winners created some exceptional projects that could turn potentially turn into viable startups!
London
We had a tie for the winner in London. First we had Bitni International, an app that empowers women all around the globe to manage their menstruation. The app includes things like educational resources that raise awareness about women’s health. The other winner was I can too, an inspirational submission board that makes crowdsourced content from real female entrepreneurs accessible to the public.
Delhi
It was inspiring to see how passionate the winning team Naari was about P&G’s challenge. These folks build an end-to-end period healthcare app. Need a tampon? Order them on the app. Need to talk to a doctor about your menstrual cycle? Chat with one on the social platform integrated into Naari.
São Paulo
Our winner built an awesome walking app called “Walk 2 Me” where local women seek other women to safely walk them from point A to point B. We’re excited to see how this team develops their project in the future. They could have some real impact on women’s safety in Brazil.
Boston
North America came in strong for P&G’s challenge. Team Tuber is an app that allows women on their period with no access to sanitary products to request assistance from other people in the area who may have an extra pad or tampon.
Barcelona
This city really took P&G’s challenge to heart. It was incredibly difficult choosing a winner but team Emily brought it home. Their awesome app is safe platform that promotes sexual health as a normal part of health care, by encouraging women of all ages and health professionals to openly discuss and manage sexual health.
The #LadyProblems series is coming to an end but we have seen so much positive change throughout the past few months. It’s amazing to see the impact all of you are having on the global tech community.
