Elizabeth Pirrie

Scheduled for 7 March, at the Kingsmill Hotel in Inverness, the free-to-attend event is tailored to address technology challenges faced by startups.

The event is focused on demystifying the technology options available to startups by helping participants determine the best route for developing and commercialising their business ideas.

Participants will gain valuable insights from industry experts who will be on hand to explore key challenges facing company founders, answer questions, and set out options. Event attendees will also be matched with tech experts and successful company founders, including Maria Bell, co-founder of Mesomorphic and Silicon Croft. As well as exploring and problem-solving participants’ real tech challenges, the event also presents an ideal opportunity for participants to network and connect with experts and peers.

The hackathon builds on the partnership between AccelerateHER and CodeBase, the delivery partner for the Scottish Government’s Techscaler programme. Membership to the Techscaler community offers founders mentorship, education programmes, workspaces, community forum, events, and more, and will be offered to eligible founders who participate in the hackathon.

Elizabeth Pirrie, CEO of AccelerateHER, said: “We’re thrilled to be staging our first-ever hackathon in Inverness for up and coming female and non-binary business founders. The event will offer useful advice that will help them navigate around technical obstacles so they are able to fully develop their business or business idea.

“Designed for rapidly exploring ideas, exercising creative problem-solving skills, and getting expert technical input on a problem or opportunity, the hackathon will also offer Highland-based participants an excellent opportunity to make new connections within the startup ecosystem.”

Yasmin Sulaiman, VP partnerships at CodeBase, said: “This supportive event is aimed at helping women and non-binary founders who are technical or non-technical, whether they’re at the very beginning of their journey or well on their way.

“Our tech advisors and facilitators aim to help participants get to grips with the problems they’re trying to solve and demystify the steps to creating a tech solution, whether that’s developing bespoke software or creating a no-code MVP.”