Anita Yip

Anita Yip and technology were always a perfect fit—she just didn’t realize it until college. Growing up in government-assisted housing for low-income families, she didn’t have access to much technology, including a mobile phone, until she became a young adult. Since she discovered her inner talents, she has participated and excelled in multiple hackathons and has helped the hacker community tremendously. She feels her openness, big-picture thinking, and drive to find solutions have been ideal for her success in the hacker community.

Early in her college career, she aimed to make a positive influence, including pioneering a community bike program on campus and raising money for need-based financial aid,  which she had received herself.

In the winter of 2018, Anita attended her first hackathon: SheHacks Boston, the event that later became the organization TechTogether. The experience rekindled her interest in coding. She began attending hackathons in person in late 2019, and she immediately saw the value of networking and how MLH events bring creative minds together. By the summer of 2020, she was in full hackathon mode, beginning with MLH’s Hackcation, where she says, “I started seeing hackathons as a way to set aside time to learn.”

Through MLH events, Anita expanded her knowledge of new technologies. At TecHacks 2020, she completed her first solo project, Project Max Match, which won her second place in the event.

She grew and blossomed from that point on, bonding with fellow hackers, often forming teams with people she meets at the event, learning new technologies, and developing the next chapter in her journey: mentoring and giving back to the community. She strives to help those underrepresented in tech. After almost 100 hackathons, she has made an impact on the MLH community by providing guidance and support to many new hackers.

Hackathons have given Anita more than just technical knowledge and computer skills. She has gained what she calls significant “social capital,” bonding with a vast, diverse group of like-minded individuals. As she says, “Thanks to hackathons, I’ve met a number of people who I feel at home with because they simply ‘get’ me.”

Being the first in her family to graduate from college, Anita faced unique challenges, including charting her own course academically and in her career. Still, she has channeled those obstacles into proven success. After spending many years building capacity at and fundraising for various nonprofit organizations, she saw how tech could transform nonprofits and sought to work at the intersection of technology and social impact. While she always had the desire and ability to succeed, hackathons helped cast away numerous doubts and fears.

With each hackathon win, Anita became more curious, more daring— actively seeking to scratch that proverbial itch and experiment with new possibilities. Looking to push her own limits both personally and technically, she began taking more risks in her hacks, exploring  technologies like the Nest API, Unity, DataStax Astra, and Jina, to name a few. While she says creating winning hacks is satisfying, her true satisfaction comes from trying new things and experimenting. She feels this too contributes to her formula for success: as she works on projects, she’s open to new ideas, new technologies, and new roles on each team.

Since entering the world of hackathons, she’s fine-tuned her career aspirations, pivoting from aiming to be a software engineer to her new goal of being a technical product or project manager. She sees the path in front of her becoming clearer thanks to MLH and her support network. She volunteers with Code for Boston, bringing her project management skills  and technical knowledge to projects she is spearheading.

Outside of tech, she runs, even completing the 2018 Boston Marathon in freezing rain as record numbers of competitors dropped out. You might think she loves to run, but actually, she says, “I really don’t. It’s because I hate running that I’m motivated to do it.” With her sights set on being able to run half-marathons when she’s 70+ years old, she has run 6 marathons since 2018. It’s a testament to Anita’s determination and drive that she challenges herself even with her hobbies.