Hackathon for Social Good in New York City

Last week I attended the Hackathon for Social Good in New York City, put on by WebVisions. As the title says, this hackathon was about projects that made a difference in our communities.

Several non-profit organizations came with projects, hoping to get developers to hack away, and move the projects forward in some way.

The first thing I noticed upon sitting down was the room was about 60% women and 40% men. A much different percentage than other hackthons I’ve attended that are usually dominated by younger white males.

There were four projects pitched for the hackathon:

• National Military Family Association - Working to improve the quality of life for military family members. 
• Cost of Freedom Project - Application to assist people to register to vote in states that require state issued I.D. 
• Right Rides - Organization that gives rides home for women, specifically transgender and gay. 
• Noor Theatre - An arts organization focus on developing and supporting artists of middle eastern decent.

I was fortunate enough to join the Cost of Freedom Project, a project I’m still contributing to even after the hackathon was over. I think the issue is important enough, and it needs attention beyond the hackathon.

Right Rides managed to put together a pretty impressive application using Google Maps and Talk, and used GeoLoqi allowing the dispatchers to coordinate with drivers in real-time via their cell phones and see riders and drivers on the map.

National Military Family Association was not able to put together an application, but they were able to plan their strategy around how there were going to efficiently gather the information and resources they needed to put their site together.

Noor Theatre’s project was centered around getting more organized with their CRM and fundraising. Several mentors at the hackathon helped them better use some of the tools they already were using like Salesforce and MailChimp, and connected their applications using APIs. It was not the usual thing you see at hackathons, but I think is an important type of hacking that more organizations could use.

The Hackathon for Social Good was definitely more my type of hackathon, where developers can work to make a difference rather than just competing for prizes and coding glory. I understand that this type of coding doesn’t attract mainstream developers, but I think if programmers gave a little back in this way they’d still get a challenge and feel much better about themselves when they go back to work on Monday.

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