If you have a passion for tech for good and want to encourage innovation at your charity, running a hack day (aka hackathon) could be just what you need. In this presentation we cover:
• What is a hack and how can it benefit charities?
• What makes a good hack and how can it encourage innovation?
• How the Hack4Good movement is building solutions to humanity's biggest problems
• How to attract developers to your cause and build #apps4good
Emixa Mendix Meetup 11 April 2024 about Mendix Native development
Fostering innovation: The secrets to running a charity hack
1. Fostering Innovation – the secrets of running a
charity hack
IoF National Convention July 2014
2. What we will cover
• What is a hack and how can it benefit charities?
• What makes a good hack and how can it encourage
innovation?
• How the Geeklist #hack4good movement is building solutions
to humanity's biggest problems
• How to attract developers to your cause and build apps for
good
3. Who are we?
Jamie Parkins
Product Manager at JustGiving
@jghackers
Dan Cunningham
Director, Geeklist #hack4good
@dancunningham
6. What does wikipedia say?
A hackathon (aka hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an
event in which computer programmers and others involved
in software development, collaborate intensively on a
software project.
15. So why are people increasingly turning to hacks?
- To scratch an itch that they can’t currently resource
- To tackle a timely/relevant issue head on and fast!
- To test a hypothesis / hunch
- A chance to collaborate with 3rd parties
- The fun of experimentation
- A potential low cost / low risk entry into a market
- To learn (you learn loads!)
- Instigate cultural change
16. And what’s the benefit for charities?
- To pilot a new product or idea quickly and cheaply
- Test market acceptance/readiness for an idea
- Collaborate with sector colleagues or their supporters
- Encourage new ways of giving/supporting their cause
- Reduce admin/resource (a hack can = an internal process
improvement!)
- Increase awareness of your charity in new spaces / territories
- Discover innovative ideas from other fields / sectors / outside
perspectives
- Engage positively with talented people outside of your four
walls
17.
18. Case study #1 – JustHacking
- Ran our own 24 hour internal hack in April
- Challenge was to simply come up with new ideas that would
enhance our business (inside or out)
- Cross team (finance, marketing, customer support, software
dev etc)
- 8 ideas, 3 of which have since been refined and soft
launched
- Bundles of energy
- Read our storify at https://storify.com/jghackers/justhacking
22. Case study #2 – Two charities already hacking
Ran their first innovation hack in 2013 to test 3
project ideas
“We know intelligent communications will raise Fundraising income.
Our challenge was actually can we do this, do it quickly and do it
well. We started the day with five fundamental barriers and a few
labour intensive bit-part solutions. We left the room at the end of
the day with one solution and two strategic, yet quick,
deliverables.”
@MeredithNiles Head of Fundraising Innovation at Marie Curie
23. Case study #3 – Brands that hack
• Brands are starting to use hacks for R&D and staff retention
”Industries that you would never think are trying see how they can harvest the
benefits of hackathons. It’s decentralizing their IT in favor of a greater
collaboration between developers, marketers, and CEOs to create products or
simply get ideas flowing outside the typically constrained box.”
[Angelhack founder Sabeen Ali]
24. Brands that hack
• http://www.fastcolabs.com/3030628/why-do-big-companies-do-hackathons
• http://www.workforce.com/articles/corporations-adopt-the-hackathon
• http://thayerprime.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/when-hackdays-just-arent-cool-some-
pr-advice-for-brands-and-companies/
• Normally well organised, well drilled events
• Can charities start to leverage your corporate partners?
• Be wary of not ripping off attendees as Cadbury’s did.
Chocolate < IP
25.
26.
27. “united globally we hack a better world”
A global movement - multi-city 48-hour hackathon events
Uniting leading minds – software engineers and NGOs
collaborate intensively to build solutions to some of humanity's
greatest challenges
Creating real-world impact – 1 in 5 projects continue
122 cities and growing
29. Whitecane
Winners of #hack4good 0.5, built
in New Delhi, India (Feb 2014)
Whitecane is a mobile app to
help people with visual
impairments such as
prosopagnosia recognise the
faces and emotions of their
loved ones.
Field testing with local charities
30.
31. Siltinapp
1st place #hack4good 0.5 in Dublin
Sanitation Marketing - market-
driven approach to satisfy
consumer demand for sanitation
products in developing countries
Web + Mobile + SMS app that
enables people to obtain price,
product and supplier information
for sanitation products within
their geographical area
Working with GOAL Ireland to set
up field trials in Sierra Leone
32.
33. How you can get involved
Define the challenge / problem statement – what is the
problem technology might help solve? Who has the
problem? What constraints are there?
Pitch your challenge live - either locally or globally
Collaborate at the hackathon – 48-hours – ideation,
development, feedback, presentations
Commit to take it forwards – further development,
piloting, field testing, funding
41. Philippines Typhoon Appeal app
• Outcome of 2 Hack4Good collaborators
• A donation journey that enabled people to share their £5 gift to
Facebook and encouraged friends to donate
• Simple message, simple journey
• Tech utilized: JustGiving APIs, Facebook Apps, Heroku (cloud
hosting)
• Built in 5 days, raised £30k
• 54% of people who donated shared to their Facebook friends
44. 10 Tips for joining a hack
1. What do you want to achieve? Learn new skill, test something,
motivate your developer team, scratch an itch?
2. Plan in advance, hacks are often at weekends
3. Don’t overly plan in advance – remain flexible
4. Bring people with buckets of enthusiasm and good ideas
5. Be prepared to collaborate
6. Research your idea – understand user needs / be the user
7. Look at what tools and softwares you can leverage – don’t reinvent
the wheel
8. Get your environments running in advance
9. Eat well, drink well
10. Go for it!
45. 10 Tips for running a hack
1. Give advanced notice (use forums, meetups etc)
2. Set a clear and open brief / challenge / problem statement
3. Embrace openness e.g. open data, open source, open innovation
4. Good venue, with kick ass wifi
5. Make it free (offset with sponsors)
6. Offer on day support
7. Be willing to promote and talk about the winners. Celebrate
success v prizes
8. Be flexible (things change on the day)
9. Build alliances with partners and API providers
10. Create a dialogue channel / document the day (social, storify etc)
47. Useful resources
Meet Ups - http://www.meetup.com/UK-Hackathons-and-Jams/
The Hackday Manifesto - http://hackdaymanifesto.com/
2014 – The Year Hackathons got serious -
http://blog.readingroom.com/2014/03/19/hackathons-got-serious/
Everything You Ever Needed To Know About Hacks -
http://blog.eventbrite.co.uk/everything-you-ever-needed-to-know-
about-running-a-successful-hackathon/
48. Interested?
Want to
join a
hack?
Want to
run a
hack?
Want to
join the
Disaster
Response
Team?
Sign up to our survey at
https://justgivingapps.wufoo.eu/forms/hack/
49. In summary
There are many types of hackathons and they’re either competitive or
communal. They can be aimed at start-ups, developing open source
projects, they can be aimed at serving a specific community or brand or
even to explore the possibilities of a new product.
But one thing holds for all hackathons – they are about building things.
[Fadie Hannona, MakersAcademy]
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOmiCyzVFhE (play from 0:04 to 2:02)
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3sQXgjKP88&feature=youtube_gdata_player (play from 0:00 to 3:36)
A destroyed house on the outskirts of Tacloban on Leyte island. This region was the worst affected by the typhoon, causing widespread damage and loss of life. Caritas is responding by distributing food, shelter, hygiene kits and cooking utensils. (Photo: Eoghan Rice - Trócaire / Caritas)
"Elk Bath" – A wildfire in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, United States
Taken by John McColgan – Edited by Fir0002 - taken by John McColgan, employed as a fire behavior analyst at the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Drought in Somalia, East Africa
Aden Jama takes one of his few remaining goats out to look for pasture. As the drought has worsened he and his family have lost many of their animals and had to move closer to the village and the water trucking site.
“Before the drought I had 220 sheep and goats and 12 camels. Now I have 40 sheep and goats and three camels left. The rest have died from the lack of water and pasture.
“We used to live 10kms away and come to the village when we needed things. But we’ve had to move closer and closer as the livestock are getting weaker and can’t travel so far.
“This is the first time we’ve seen this scale – in the last drought a few animals died but most survived. Now they are so weak that if it rains heavily it might kill them – we will have to shelter them in the house or they would die in the rain.
“Our lives depend on our livestock – we have no other skills and there are no other jobs.
“In the past the children had milk from the animals. Now they have nothing. They are still ok for now, but you can see them getting weaker. It is almost six months since they ate meat or vegetables. Relatives send us food – we mainly eat rice twice a day, and sometimes maize, tea, flour and bread.”
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oxfam_East_Africa_-_SomalilandDrought011.jpg