Crawley University student makes ‘Top 50 list’ for world’s rising technologists of the day

The recipients are recognized for their exceptional contributions to the tech ecosystem & STEM education.

Sarah Fluck, 25, stood out from other applicants for breaking into the hackathon scene as a self-taught programmer.

As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted daily routines, Sarah used the extra time to teach herself HTML and CSS using online resources such as W3Schools and Sololearn.

She quickly moved on to JavaScript and signed up for an online computer science class, CS50: Introduction to Computer Science which is offered through Harvard University.

During this course, Fluck spent much of her time learning C, which gave her solid fundamentals with which to build projects in C++.

Sarah said: “When I started experimenting with software ideas I had outside of tutorials, I really began to fall in love with programming and the excitement of getting something to work after hours of debugging.

“I found that a good way for a beginner to get involved with the programming community is to make contributions to open source projects.”

Sarah soon stumbled upon the MLH Fellowship, and despite not being a STEM student or understanding what a hackathon was, she applied and was accepted into the program.

At her first hackathon, Sarah and her team developed Owlhub, an app geared specifically for fellow coders to share their code. As part of the MLH Fellowship, she has contributed to Hermes, an open-source engine optimized for React Native, even further growing her skills in C++

See more: Crawley Secondary School selected to compete in finals of national technology competition, Two of LEGO's first UK airport stores opens at Gatwick, alongside new Kidstop pop-up and return of Ted Baker and Itsu, West Sussex libraries ‘Go Gadgeteer’ crazy with this year’s Summer Reading Challenge

Sarah continues: “Doing the MLH Fellowship was more than just an opportunity to write code. Being part of the hacker community, I was able to meet many people who were as passionate as I was about technology and learning.

“This combination of work experience and emphasis on soft skills during the Fellowship is what ultimately led me to land my first software engineering role in London.

“It is a high honor to be chosen as an MLH Top 50 recipient as each is selected from a pool of more than 150,000 active community members, comprising one in three new programmers in the United States (and even more abroad.)”