After Juan Idowu first heard about Avanade’s inaugural International Women’s Day global hackathon – a 48-hour hacking event designed to find solutions to gender equity issues, and co-sponsored by Major League Hacking, Women in Cloud and the International Rescue Committee – she was immediately determined to submit an idea. The Dublin-based senior analyst in Modern Workplace Engineering had started her search for a collaborator when she recalled an impressive presentation from a colleague, London-based Modern Workplace Engineering consultant Anastasia Kartashyan, and decided to send her a message.

The two women had never worked together before, but as luck would have it, Anastasia was already on the same page: “I was actually thinking about collaborating with someone I knew but the hackathon was over the weekend, so they had plans,” she recalled. “And then Juan reached out to me and I was like, ‘This is supposed to happen.’”

Little did Juan and Anastasia know just how fateful the partnership would become. Their idea – a prototype for an app called WOMEN that connects women with career mentors – won both the Women in Cloud “Allyship” challenge category and the overall Best in Show category.

Fresh off their double win, here’s what Juan and Anastasia had to say about the hacking process, the importance of mentorship for women’s careers and what’s next for the WOMEN app.

How did you come up with the idea for WOMEN, and what makes it different from other mentoring platforms?

Anastasia: Ahead of the hackathon we spend two days just talking about what we could do, and Juan came up with an idea for a dashboard. I’m actually in this mentorship program called Realize Your Potential, and so many ladies voice concerns about not having the right mentors or needing mentorship to help them build self-esteem and self-confidence. So we decided to combine these things together: an app to help you find mentors with a dashboard to track your progress.

Juan: There are other mentoring solutions out there, but none of them are applications, right? Many of these platforms would host, for example, a mentoring program – something that runs for a month, or two months. And from there, it’s really left to the mentor and mentee if they wish to maintain the relationship that was built during the program. But our application allows for continuity, so you’re able to join programs, keep in touch with your mentors and track your progress. We’re looking to fill that gap.

Why is mentorship so crucial for women’s careers?

Juan: A lot of women choose to keep things to themselves. Many times we face challenges – not just on the work front, but on a personal level – and we tend to feel like no one would understand, or maybe people would tag us as weak or not smart enough. However, with the right mentor, someone who roots for you and encourages you to reach your full potential, the possibilities are limitless.

For example, joining Avanade in 2022, my career adviser is a man. However, he has grown to be one of my strongest male allies because he’s always willing to give me advice – and not just in regard to Avanade related issues, he also acted as a guide when I relocated to Dublin with my family. If I didn’t have his guidance, I don’t think I would have signed up for this hackathon in the first place.

Anastasia: Having someone who believes in you and leads by example is so important – especially seeing female leaders and learning from them and getting their support is really, really beneficial. My career adviser helps me so much. She inspires me to do more, to learn more, to venture outside my comfort zone. It’s really inspiring and I’m really happy to have her by my side. But I feel like more people could benefit from mentorship programs.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced over the hackathon weekend?

Anastasia: That there was only one weekend to work!

Juan: I have two kids – my first is two years and 10 months old and my second is seven months old. And I was just coming out of a project where for the past four weeks I had joined cut-over calls with clients every Saturday from 6-11 a.m. So just when I was going to own my weekends again, here’s this weekend hackathon! But the vision kept me going, and I kept thinking, ‘I want to do this, I just needed to find a way around managing it.’

We had to work in shifts. Sometimes Anastasia would be working on something while I would be off at the store or making lunch, and then I’d come back to see she’d made great progress. We were just trying to juggle everything because she also had to take care of things in her home.

What’s next for WOMEN?

Juan: One of the big wins for us is that we are getting a meeting with Avanade leadership to speak with them and see how we can bring WOMEN to life. Even if it’s just a MVP to start, we wish to make it available to every woman.

Anastasia: We’re thinking about starting with our region, U.K. and Ireland, to see if people will engage with it. And then if it’s successful, we can think about broadening it to other regions.