HACKATHONS, CHALLENGES, AND APPSPrototyping a Sustainable Community Process to Develop Ideas, Build Solutions, and Showcase Innovation

How do we create an environment that supports the development of innovative solutions that can be

adopted by organizations in the field and sustained over time?

The Steps

① Learn

② Generate

③ Build

④ Select

⑤ Share

① LEARN

• Identify Issue Areas• Domestic Violence• Pet Rescue• Food Rescue• Autism• Gun Violence

• Research• Mini-Generator session at #ntc13• Desk research• Interviews with librarians• Outreach to YouthBuild

① Learn

② GENERATE

• Bring together NGO experts in each issue area• TSG offices week of May 6

• 5, two-and-a-half hour sessions

• Engineer for others to hold these• We don’t actually expect them to

• At least, not yet

• Goals• 6 participants in each issue area

• 3 well-defined ideas in each area• 6 ideas with a two-sentence description

• 15 more ideas from the community-at-large

• Follow up• Notes of session• Resource for surfaced technology capacity building issues

② Generate

③ BUILD

• Hackathon• Bring together technology activists to prototype solutions

• Use the Idea Gallery to spark the prototypes• And the Hack for Good README Guides provide detail and technology assets

• Goals• 25 attendees in real world; 20 virtual attendees• X prototypes

• We can better estimate this after the Generator Session

• Hackers-at-Large• Outreach to the broad community of technology activists• Invite them to submit prototypes

③ Build

④ SELECT

• Community Selection• Aggregate prototypes by issue area• Invite Generator participants to vote based on area of expertise

• We will use communication to guide the path • We won’t use technology to prevent them from voting in another area

• Reach out to community experts to vote• Again with the comms instead of tech

• Goals• Over 100 ballots cast per issue area• Between 3 to 5 community winners based on total number of

entrants

④ Select

⑤ SHARE

• Demo to technology experts• Showcase to Microsoft staff• Other technology communities as appropriate

• Demo to the community• Paired with experts who generated the idea• Webinar on TechSoup.org

• Invited demo• As appropriate, to funders, government officials, etc.

• Invitation to complete• Caravan Studios staff select certain projects for the Public Good

App House

⑤ Share

BUT WAIT. There’s More.

• API for Domestic Violence information• Currently a submitted project in Microsoft Volunteer Manager

• Develop a community survey to aid with issue selection• Libraries as a central node

• Document before events • Encourage others to host similar events• Contribute, even without events

• Submit some ideas as projects through corporate volunteerism portals• Microsoft Volunteer Manager and other appropriate tools• Dollars for Doers can go to support Caravan Studios

• It’s not a lot but it’ll pay for the pizza at the events

• Share with college, universities, and coding programs• Judge the completeness of code completed by these groups

Caravan Studios is a division of TechSoup Global, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

We hope you will connect with us at:

@caravanstudios http://caravanstudios.tumblr.com

and

@techsouphttp://www.techsoupglobal.org