And now you know how it feels to be the only woman engineer on a team of 20 engineers. It's awkward and sometimes hard for women engineers like me to focus on our jobs because of the awkwardness contributing to hostile work environments. And this is why it's awesome that YC is supporting Women Who Code.
Chemistry is often seen as a "softer" science out of the others on the list with supposedly more work/life balance. That was how it was explained to me as a woman when I declared that I was going to study electrical engineering in college. A lot of people tried to steer me towards chemical engineering but I was horrible at chemistry and my interests were more aligned with electrical engineering so I stuck with it.
I'm in my late 20s and started the same way. Ended up leading to my first entrepreneurial pursuit - I made money by coding games and getting friends to pay me to put them on their calculators.
Slack has a Reporting Security Vulnerabilities page on its site: http://slack.com/whitehat. Seems like something they would have taken seriously if it had been brought to them first.
I thought the expo format was alright but it would've been better if there was a larger space so some teams didn't have to be outside and people didn't have to shout over each other while trying to discuss their projects. It was a better format for larger teams though, as everyone could take turns presenting and looking at other projects.
I didn't get involved with either of those activities as I was too busy hacking but I thought they added some more unique fun to the event. They were out of the way, behind the general hacking area so if you weren't seeking them out, you could have easily missed them.
This doesn't seem like an upgrade from Dear Kate's (dearkates.com) products except for the partnership to give back. Love the few pairs I have from Dear Kate, they work really well.
Woman developer here. That's the one piece of advice I give to men who ask what they can do to help. I've had way more men come to me privately after an incident to apologize for being a witness and saying nothing than have actively stepped in to stop what was going on. I wish it were the other way around.