Roles

Tech platform author and organizer. Built and maintained the Tech Leaders online applications. Participated as a mentor across editions I, II, III, and IV, supporting developers and aspiring entrepreneurs through a closed mentee community focused on knowledge sharing and professional growth.

Git workshop: introduction to modern distributed version control system for streamlining development workflows.

Mentored participants at 24-hour hackathon centred around beacon technology, covering tracks: Beacons for Business, Beacons for Good, and Beacons for Fun.

Mentored participants at Cracow Culture Jam, a one-day KTP (Krakowski Park Technologiczny) event exploring digital cultural resources through Design Thinking and rapid prototyping.

Shared best practices on "How to Support Women and Their Passion for Technology" at the "Girls go STEM!" initiative. Also facilitated youth group sessions during the event.

Delivered two-day workshops teaching women web design, prototyping, and coding with Ruby on Rails.

Spoke at a charity fundraiser supporting animal rescue (psitulmnie.pl) and national bone marrow donor registration. Co-organized by Geek Girls Carrots, Women in Technology, Rails Girls Silesia, and Czwartkowe Spotkania Social Media.

Mentored a woman through Ruby as her first programming language, supporting her journey into software development.

Rails Girls Gliwice — mentoring and sharing web development skills and a passion for coding with women in tech.

Led a 2-hour workshop "Rapid Web Development with Symfony" at the Career Conference in Kraków.

Speaker at Day of Escape — an internal Cracow University of Technology event. Delivered a talk: "Rapid Web Development with Symfony".

Delivered a motivational talk — "The Power of Events" — on the impact of IT (and broader) events on personal development and career growth.

Organized and led Hack4Good 0.6 in Kraków — a global 48-hour hackathon connecting developers, nonprofits, people in need, and API providers across the world. Over 2,000 developers took part globally, with all venue activity streamed live online.

Delivered a talk on Symfony — covering its simplicity, capabilities, and modular architecture as a set of autonomous, independent, and highly customizable components.

Guided participants through Ruby on Rails, from understanding the tools to building web applications.

Tutored women in Git, console usage, and Ruby on Rails. Gave a lightning talk about career path.

Built a thriving Kraków community of women in tech from the ground up. Drove monthly meetups, delivered hands-on tech workshops and mentored women entering the software industry.

Rails Girls Youth tutor — a special edition targeting girls aged 13–19, introducing them to web development and encouraging their passion for programming.

Seven teams created innovative smart technology tools to help transform the lives of disadvantaged people in Poland and worldwide.

Krakow Tech Heads Help Transform Lives

Disadvantaged people have every reason to toast the success of a charity drive that brought IT experts together in Krakow.
Talented software App developers got in the inventors’ saddle for a 48-hour non-stop Hackathon in aid of needy communities, and came up trumps.
Seven teams created innovative smart technology tools to help transform the lives of disadvantaged people in Poland and worldwide.
First place in the Krakow hack4good event at the creativestyle office in Zabłocie went to a team that developed a mobile App allowing blind people to obtain real-time audio information about bus and tram journeys.
Runners-up also perfected a mobile App enabling deaf people to send an emergency SMS message via the 112 service to call for help. This second-placed winning tool is set to be rolled out across Poland in the summer.
Third place went to the creators of an App intended to send urgent text message requests for help to registered blood donors.
Eight projects were supported by volunteers representing non-profit organisations at the hack4good weekend tech-marathon in Zabłocie on Feb 7–9, 2014.
One of the teams went 48 hours without a break to develop two tools for needy causes. Each team accepted the challenge to create games and practical tools for charities, non-govermental organisations and people with special needs.
It was a long haul but worthwhile, thanks to the generosity of event sponsors: Google, Creativestyle, Codete, Copper, Making Waves, Softnauts, Software Mansion, SMSapi, Estimote, e24cloud.com, burn, PWN, and Freshmail, who supplied food, drinks, prizes and API technical support.
Judges had a hard decision to make, but agreed that the best project was the talking travel system, created by Maciej Szafraniec, Jakub Mazur and Ivo Polański. It gives non- and partially-sighted users up-to-the-second aural commentary on bus and tram movements – guiding people to stops, telling them where the next service is due, when it has arrived and, once on board, real-time updates on the journey. The application works thanks to devices called beacons produced by the Estimote company – which utilise the Bluetooth network.
The implementation of text messages to the emergency telephone number for the deaf has wider use for able-bodied people alike. The team (Jakub Wiśniewski and Wojciech Krawczyk) has already been in discussion with the people in charge of the nationwide 112 SOS telephone service, with hopes high that technology created at the hackathon could be rolled out early as June 2014.
In third place were Artur Staniec, Dawid Rusnak, Marcin Klocek, Bartek Dukes and Krzysztof Daniel, who created a useful tool that trawls medical websites to notify registered blood donors via email, SMS or Android as and when life-saving donations are needed.
A spokesperson for the organisers said: “We thank everyone who made the event a success, from the sponsors and organisers to the developers and the representatives of the not-for profit organisations.”

Natalia Stanko; March 13, 2014; http://www.krakowpost.com/7791/2014/03/krakow-tech-heads-help-transform-lives