Blog %

There has been much discussion raised about "Why are women leaving Architecture? and more broadly, Why is the profession losing key talent?"  Both women and men practitioners are disillusioned by the myth of work/life balance: Women are grappling with "have it all" expectations of juggling family time with the demands of full-time work.  Men are struggling to support their families solely on an architect's salary and fall back on asking spouses to maintain their jobs. The lack of affordable childcare and high cost of living only magnifies the challenges.  How did we end up in this modern family dilemma? What can we do to improve the situation?

#EQxDHack17 @ A'17 Conference on Architecture - Storify Recap and Blog Series

One of the most talked about events at the AIA A'17 Conference on Architecture in Orlando was the 3rd Annual Equity by Design Hackathon: Architecture and the Era of Connections on Wednesday April 26, 2017.  We continued to have a very diverse group of hackers this year, which varied in age, level of experience, gender and racial/ethnicity. Our great experiment of the hackathon also reinforced the idea that a diverse group of strangers can work collaboratively and successfully together in a condensed period of time to ideate and develop creative solutions for the many challenges we face in the relevancy of the profession.

Class of #EQxDHack17 Photo - April 26, 2017 at A'17 Conference on Architecture in Orlando, Fl.

Class of #EQxDHack17 Photo - April 26, 2017 at A'17 Conference on Architecture in Orlando, Fl.

We are grateful to our panel this year that included talented architecture and industry thought leaders F. Jason Campbell, Esther Sperber and Carlos Velazquez. Our Jurors also featured EQxDHack veterans Lilian Asperin and Frances Choun.

This week, we are excited to launch the #EQxDHack17 Blog Series that includes the lessons learned from the day and summation of elevator pitches of the 4 teams: SPARC, My Block, Equator and Our Town. While it took us some time to recover from the intensity of A'17, we really wanted to capture the voices and insights from as many team members as possible while also crafting clear and inspiring learning tools for those who couldn't be with us. Special Thanks goes to our #EQxDHack17 Scholarship winners for leading the efforts of organizing their teams thoughts into the team blogs.

As a great way to get immersed before we launch the #EQxDHack17 Blog Series, we have captured live tweets from the Hackathon and Happy Hour hoping that it will provide you with a great overview of the day's energy. See if you can spot some familiar faces!

What is EQxDHackathon?

If this is the first time you have heard about Equity by Design Hackathons at the AIA National Conference on Architecture (Formerly known as 'Convention') here are the summaries of past #EQxDHack events that would give you a better idea of the unique continuing education experience. 

#EQxDHack15 in Atlanta Blog Series Recap

#EQxDHack16 in Philadelphia Blog Series Recap

 

Save the Date: #EQxDHack18 on June 20, 2018 NYC

Be sure to join us next year in NYC as we come up with a more exciting, invigorating and game changing experience at A'18. 

 

Thanks to our #EQxDHack17 Sponsors!