"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today" - Malcolm X

When Malcom X said that, he probably had foreseen the moments when simple girls, hailing from typical Indian middle-class families, become the torchbearers of women techies in India.

Meet Varsha Prabhu and Donna Joseph. Varsha won the TechGig Geek Goddess 2018 by beating more than 68,000 ace coders and developers in this grand code contest dedicated for women techies. Donna, who is a coder by experience, but discovered her finesse in UI as she won the UI theme.

Simple in her manners, Varsha is an alumnus of National Institute of Technology (NIT) Surathkal, in Karnataka. She challenged and won over the best and brightest Indian women coders in Bengaluru recently to take home the coveted title of TechGig Geek Goddess 2018. "Participating in the TechGig Geek Goddess contest was a wonderful experience. Seeing so many women coders at one place was very inspiring,” said Varsha in an exasperated tone as she recalled her moment of glory from the event floor. “Though I did not specially prepare for the contest, I had prepared for some contests back in college which helped here,” she said, while still trying to hide her obvious excitement.

Donna too was taken by surprise when she saw her name among the theme finalists. “I am a coder and was shortlisted for final rounds of both coding and UI themes. The UI bit was more surprising because all the other finalists were professional designers. Hence I could not believe the fact that I had won the theme title,” Donna shared. She says that because of her win in UI theme at TechGig Geek Goddess 2018, she is being approached by companies for her design capabilities. Donna was joined by Zabeen Sheikh as winner for UI theme.

Along with UI, there were two other new themes – IoT and Data Science. Shobika Saravanan and Divya Mohan were winners in IoT theme and Roopa Gupta and Chandra Rekha Molal were winners in Data Science.

TechGig Geek Goddess is an annual coding competition held by TechGig - India's leading IT learning platform. The idea behind organising this brand of event is to celebrate the coding talent and applied achievements of Indian women techies. Alongside, this event is a perfect stage for IT employers who are looking to ramp up the number of women techies in their companies.

TechGig Geek Goddess 2018 had many reasons to celebrate other than Varsha and Donna’s victory. This year the participation number stood at 68,000 + which is almost double than the 2017 figure. New themes like UI, Data Science & IoT were intentionally introduced in this season to let the techies experiment vigorously with their work. "Varsha's story is an inspiration in every sense and she personifies the true spirit of TechGig Geek Goddess 2018," said Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, Timesjobs and TechGig as he expressed immense happiness on phenomenal turnout at the event.

"Coding is moving out of its male dominated stereotype and is becoming an all-encompassing field where gender, background or geography plays no role in determining the opportunities available to a person - and we are happy that we are able to contribute to bring about this change. We are already excited thinking about the unlimited talent horizon that the next edition of TechGig Code Gladiators could unfurl," he said.

“We are thrilled that over 68,000 coders and developers participated in the TechGig Geek Goddess 2018 event. This is a strong show of passion for technology, and a good indicator of the immense talent that women possess in the IT industry. Such platforms will encourage more women in technology to demonstrate their skills, share knowledge, and become future ready. We congratulate all participants and winners,” said Mohan Sekhar, Senior Managing Director and Lead – Accenture Advanced Technology Centers in India.

Varsha took home a grand prize of Rs 1,50,000. There were more winners from other categories and collectively, they all took home prizes worth Rs 7.5 Lakh. All details of winners are available at https://www.techgig.com/geekgoddess