Startup Weekend Women Columbus: What 54 Hours Proved About Women, AI, and Building the Room.

We ran Techstars Startup Weekend Women in Columbus. 54 hours. One team shipped a working MVP with real data and won. A student pitched for the first time in her life. A founder wore pants made from her first bridal market banner. This is what happens when you stop talking about the gap and start building the space.

TL;DR: Theanna co-organized Techstars Startup Weekend Women Columbus on International Women’s Day weekend. The winning team built LAND — a land development intelligence platform with real Columbus zoning data, 2,000+ agent outreach, and a live waitlist — in 54 hours. A student who couldn’t order food at a restaurant pitched in front of judges. Six sponsors showed up. The LinkedIn posts started rolling in. This is the case study of what happens when you open the space.

What You Will Learn in This Post

• Why Theanna Ran This Event
• What Happened in 54 Hours
• The Winning Team: LAND
• The Moment That Mattered Most
• What the Founders Said
• Sponsors, Mentors, and Judges
• What’s Next: Techstars Isn’t Done
• Why This Model Works

Why Theanna ran Startup Weekend Women in Columbus

Because the gap doesn’t close with blog posts. It closes with rooms.

Harvard Business School published the data: women adopt AI at a 25% lower rate than men. Not because they can’t. Because the spaces where AI gets learned weren’t built for them. Women-led startups get 2% of total VC funding but generate 2.5x more revenue per dollar raised. There are 24.8 million “missing women entrepreneurs” in OECD countries — $5 trillion in unrealized economic value.

So when Techstars opened the door for Startup Weekend Women — happening in 40+ cities across 25+ countries on International Women’s Day — I raised my hand for Columbus. Not to give a keynote. To build the room.

Theanna’s mission is to help idea-stage founders build, launch, and grow. That means we don’t just teach — we create the spaces where building actually happens. Startup Weekend Women was the live version of what we do every day inside Women Build Cool Sh*t: put women in a room with real tools, real mentors, and real deadlines, and watch what happens.

What happened in 54 hours

Friday night, March 6th at Rev1 Ventures in Columbus. Women walked in not knowing each other. By Sunday evening, they had teams, products, traction, and pitch decks in front of judges.

The format is brutal in the best way. You pitch an idea on Friday. Teams form around the best ideas. Saturday is heads-down building — breakfast at 8AM, dinner at 8PM, and everything in between is pure execution. Sunday you refine, rehearse, and present to a panel of judges.

We fed them well. We gave them mentors. We gave them AI tools. And then we got out of the way.

What came out of that room exceeded anything I could have planned.

The winning team: LAND

Victoria Littlejohn, Jasmine May, Evelyn Retkofsky, and Sironaj Hindawi entered a hackathon with one goal: build a real product using AI. The same tools that let non-technical founders ship products in hours were in their hands all weekend.

48 hours later, they shipped a working land development intelligence platform. LAND checks over 100 data points on every parcel so developers have a thorough history of what they’re actually buying. They reached out to over 2,000 real estate agents. They have a live waitlist. They built a real MVP with real Columbus zoning data.

And they won.

As Catherine Brinkman put it: urban planning matters. When you flush your toilet or turn on your lights — that’s planning. LAND is solving a real problem that affects how cities grow, how commercial spaces get repurposed, and how developers make smarter decisions.

“This weekend I forced myself to do something absolutely terrifying. I entered a Techstars Startup Weekend hackathon with one goal: build a real product using AI. 48 hours later, we shipped a working land development intelligence platform. And we won. Turns out the barrier to building software isn’t coding anymore. It’s courage. — Victoria Littlejohn, founder of LAND”

Victoria’s team now qualifies for the Techstars Global Pitch Competition in May, where first-place teams from each city pitch to Techstars judges. A company born in 54 hours in Columbus is heading to a global stage.

“Startup Weekend Women, defined: A 54-hour global startup competition run by Techstars in 40+ cities across 25+ countries, timed to International Women’s Day. Participants pitch ideas on Friday, form teams, build working products with AI tools, and present to judges by Sunday. First-place teams are invited to a virtual Global Pitch Competition. The Columbus 2026 edition produced LAND, a land development intelligence platform that launched with real data and 2,000+ agent outreach.”

The moment that mattered most

There were a lot of moments this weekend. But the one I keep coming back to is Olivia Baine.

Olivia is a student at Ohio State. She told her audience that a few years ago, she couldn’t even order food at a restaurant because of her fear of public speaking. Let alone pitch an idea in front of a room full of strangers.

This weekend, she stood on stage and pitched. She built for 50+ hours with her team — Aryaka Tickoo, Imaya Perera, and Cynthia Song. She showed up authentically and presented herself confidently in front of an audience for the first time in her life.

“It’s not always hard to build a product, it’s hard to sell the vision. For the first time, I felt like I was able to show up authentically and present myself confidently in front of an audience. I was reminded of how important it is to surround yourself with people who are excited to learn, create, and improve. — Olivia Baine, IBE-SI Honors @ Ohio State”

This is why spaces matter. A woman who couldn’t order food at a restaurant stood on stage and sold her vision. Not because someone taught her a framework. Because someone opened a room and said: build.

What the founders said in their own words

I didn’t have to write the case study. The founders wrote it for me on LinkedIn the same day.

Becca Wenning — founder of Dressit.ai, who I co-hosted the event with — showed up wearing pants made from a banner she carried home from her very first bridal market in March 2024. Her top was made from a backdrop at the first event she ever co-hosted as a founder. She walked into International Women’s Day literally wearing her founder journey.

“What came out of Techstars Women Startup Weekend is going to be seen and felt for a long time. I’m sure of it. To every participant who stayed up late, pitched scared, and kept going…I see you. What you built matters. — Becca Wenning, founder of Dressit.ai”

Catherine Brinkman called the weekend’s winning product exactly what it is: urban planning that matters. She pointed out that this was her first startup weekend in Columbus, and she’s excited for what the future holds as AI and defense companies continue to grow locally.

Victoria Littlejohn posted about overcoming her own fear and ended with the line that I think sums up the entire weekend: the future belongs to the people willing to build. So build.

Olivia Baine thanked Builders and the Integrated Business and Engineering Honors Program for bringing her team together, and gave shoutouts to the mentors and organizers who made the space feel safe enough to take a risk.

None of these women knew each other before Friday. All of them left Sunday with something they didn’t have before: proof that they can build.

Who made it possible

Events like this don’t happen without people and organizations who put their money, their time, and their names behind women founders. I want to call every one of them out.

Sponsors

Six organizations sponsored Startup Weekend Women Columbus and made it possible for every participant to walk in, build for 54 hours, and walk out with something real:

• Rev1 Ventures — Hosted us at their space at 330 Rush Alley in Columbus. Rev1 is one of the most active venture development organizations in the Midwest, and they gave our founders a world-class venue to build in.
• Accelerating Angels — An angel investment group focused on diverse founders. Their presence at the event sent a clear signal: the capital is here when you’re ready.
• Jakib AI — Jakib brought energy, visibility, and media support that amplified what happened in the room far beyond Columbus.
• Big Kitty Labs — Supporting founders building with AI. Big Kitty Labs showed up because they believe in what happens when women get access to the tools.
• Theanna — My company. We didn’t just sponsor — we organized, mentored, and built alongside the teams. This is what Theanna does: create the infrastructure for women to build.
• Stansbury Weaver, Ltd. — Legal support for startups. Having legal counsel available from day one is the kind of infrastructure that turns hackathon projects into real companies.

Mentors and judges

The mentors and judges who showed up this weekend didn’t just evaluate — they coached, challenged, and encouraged every team through all 54 hours:

• Tim Grace — Showed up every day, worked with every team, and brought decades of experience to a room full of first-time founders.
• Becca Wenning — Co-hosted the event and brought the energy of a founder who’s been in the arena. Her Dressit.ai journey inspired every participant.
• Margo Kressin Wilfong — MBA and mentor who brought structured thinking and business model expertise to every team she worked with.
• Phillip Smith — Provided technical mentorship and helped teams think through product architecture.
• Jason Veatch — Brought product and go-to-market expertise that helped teams sharpen their pitches.
• Catherine Brinkman — AI and emerging space tech GTM leader who judged the final pitches and helped teams think bigger.
• Kirsten Haller — Brought operator experience and helped teams think about execution beyond the weekend.
• Sean Erikson — Mentor who helped teams navigate the hardest part: turning a 54-hour sprint into something that lasts.

Every one of these people gave their weekend. Not for equity. Not for exposure. Because they believe that when you give women the room and the resources, they build things that matter.

What’s next: Techstars isn’t done

If you missed this weekend, there are still Startup Weekend Women events coming up — Bangkok (March 13–15) and Dublin (March 20–22) are next. Our winning team, LAND, advances to Techstars’ Global Pitch Competition in May.

And if you’re building something bigger, Techstars Columbus Powered by The Ohio State University is accepting applications right now through June 10. The program starts September 14 and runs through Demo Day on December 10. Every founder accepted gets a $220K investment, mentorship from Techstars’ global network, and direct access to Ohio State’s research ecosystem and industry partners across healthcare, energy, manufacturing, and defense.

26% of Techstars founders and CEOs are women. They’ve partnered with Barclays on the Female Founders First programme and with Harlem Capital to fast-track success for women and minority-led startups. This isn’t a PR initiative. It’s infrastructure.

What I saw in Columbus this weekend exists because Techstars designed for it. More organizations need to do the same: stop talking about the gap and start building the rooms where women can close it themselves.

Why this model works and what we’re building next

I’ve been saying it since I started Theanna: the gap doesn’t close with reports. It closes with rooms. Startup Weekend Women Columbus is proof.

In one weekend, women who had never built a product shipped MVPs. Women who had never pitched stood on stage. A team built a real company with real data and is heading to a global competition. The LinkedIn posts rolled in the same day — not because I asked, but because the experience was that significant.

This is what Theanna does at scale. Our Women Build Cool Sh*t cohort has 27 women across 27 states and 4 countries building products right now. Nurses, engineers, astrophysicists, speech pathologists — all building with AI tools like Claude Code and Lovable. Startup Weekend Women was the 54-hour live version of what our community does every single day.

The formula is simple: real tools, real mentors, real deadlines, and a room where it’s safe to be a beginner. When women get that, they don’t just close the gap. They outperform.

Thank you to Techstars for building the global infrastructure. Thank you to every sponsor who put their name and resources behind Columbus. Thank you to every mentor who gave their weekend. And thank you to every woman who walked through the door on Friday not knowing what would happen — and left Sunday with proof that she can build.

If you’re a founder who just vibe coded an MVP and don’t know what to do next, the answer is the same: find the room. Join a community of women who are building real businesses, not just products. Learn the business fundamentals that turn code into revenue.

This is just the beginning. We’re not done opening spaces. If you want to build alongside women who are shipping real products, join Women Build Cool Sh*t. If you want to sponsor or mentor the next event, reach out to Theanna.

The future belongs to the people willing to build. So build.