Hacking Humanitarian Projects for Fun and Profit

This is Taarifa

This is LDLN

This is Hugo Lucitante...

Images from Oil And Water

We are Geeks Without Bounds Supporting

Open Source Humanitarian Projects through Hackathons

and an Accelerator Program

Many ways to get involved... Whatever your skill level Whatever your expertise Whatever your passion

Where Most Projects Start

The Hackathon

What Should Hackathons Be Like?

A Marathon? (NO!) A Walkathon?

Image by Denise Cross Photography

A Jumprope-a-thon?

Defining Success

●  Fun

●  Learn things

●  Projects move forward

●  Sponsors get exposure

Sponsor Exposure People Use Their Tools

They Get To Talk About Themselves

They Get To Recruit Awesome Talent

The Alchemy of the Hackathon

●  Beginner's mind

●  New people

●  New information

●  Short time to accomplish big leap

(the pressure cooker)

Image by Nicolas Schossleitner

Hackathons are good for...

Civic & humanitarian projects

Hackathons are NOT good for... ●  Your next million

●  Slave labor

Remember? Don't be a jerk.

That means don't exploit people

Healthier Hackathons

Diversity! Skills, Experience, Types of People

Healthier Hackathons Collaboration > Competition ●  Encourage participants to walk around at least once ●  Stand Up reports encourage cooperation

○  Tell us what you are doing ○  Tell us what you need

Healthier Hackathons

●  Safe Space ●  Healthier food ●  It’s OK to go home

When possible… kid friendly space helps, too.

Why We Don’t Give BIG Prizes

BIG PRIZES GET IN THE WAY OF COOPERATION

All About Prizes ●  Thank you gifts for volunteer effort ●  Differentiate the ways people excel ●  Recognize special efforts

My basic recipe $5-$10 for most. A few ~$25 None too large.

What Are You Rewarding? Think about this… What is it you are trying to encourage?

Good Hackers

Don’t Let Promising Projects Die!

Image by Scott Harp

This is where the Accelerator Comes in!

Encourage New Challenges Teams that did good work in one hackathon can create challenges for the next hackathon. Move projects forward, one feature at a time.

Build teams, one event at a time.

6 Months of Mentorship

●  What does sustainability look like for this project? ●  Funding Sources ●  Developing an open source community ●  Codesign ●  Privacy and Security

Interns!

We recruit novice developers to volunteer their time to work on projects in our program. We support the interns with mentorship, and expect you to guide them as well. They get valuable experience, code on GitHub, and a warm fuzzy feeling.

Also, sometimes, stipends when available.

Money and Sustainability Different projects need different models. For Profit? Not for Profit? How do you fundraise?

We help teams make decisions, then hold their hand to get started.

After the 6 Months...

On your own? Or part of an ecosystem?

Ongoing partnerships Taarifa and SEMA in Tanzania! SNV, University of Dar Es Salaam, University of Twente, Geeks Without Bounds

Ongoing partnerships

Get Involved This Week!! RHoKSec at Haxpo

Starting at 9:30am 28 May Ending 5:30pm 29 May

➢ Break -- Find security flaws! ➢ Improve -- Fix it! ➢ Build -- Security for Vulnerable

Populations

Questions?

Thank you for your time… Lisha Sterling

Executive Director at