Some like to call it “Tinder for dogs”, but it is much more than just a buzzword. An application for adopting pets from Gdansk pet shelter is a ground-breaking project, in which the city hall, hacktivists and a private company cooperate to solve social issues with IT tools.
Right timing is crucial for every successful project. With the application Na4Łapy (“On4Legs”) it couldn’t be better. The story begins at the end of 2015, when some very interesting processes began in Gdansk. Then they were merged into one, bringing an unexpected, awe-inspiring and widely reported result.
First of all, in the second half of 2015, a Gdansk branch of Code for Poland, a twin initiative with Code for America, was established. Coders and geeks began gathering in STARTER business incubator, looking for good ideas for IT tools solving social issues. From the beginning a group of very skilled IT guys were discussing ideas which could improve quality of life in Gdansk.
At the same time, Volanto, a young, growing software house, approached the city hall, asking how they could support the city of Gdansk with their skills. To put it simple, they offered us to develop a free application, as a part of their CSR policy. We liked an idea, but weren’t sure what application it could be. Various ideas were considered. None of them had a wow factor, though.
Idea arriving just in time
Then, suddenly, a breakthrough came from GdanskLAB, an informal group of officials from various departments who work together on new ideas, improvements and innovation. It was a short, one-line e-mail which arrived to GdanskLAB mailbox: maybe we should make an application for adopting pets from Gdansk shelter?
Bingo! The moment the e-mail arrived, we understood this is the idea we were looking for.
Although our colleague who submitted the proposal wasn’t able to engage in later stages, she had a great feeling about the idea, delivering it accidentally in the best possible moment. Sometimes a bit of luck is all you need to push things forward.
We started to sketch a plan for development, in which we set a goal for social innovation: to integrate various members of Gdansk IT eco-system, working together on solving social problems through technology.
Code for Poland Trojmiasto praised the idea and many members asked to join the project. Among them there were experts on Java, AngularJS, SQL and UX. Very soon it appeared there were more volunteers interested than required.
Volanto provided project management, facilitation of the process, office space for meetings and support in integrating people into one team. The city hall, as the owner of the pet shelter, took a role of an intermediary among all stakeholders.
First meeting
On a kick-off meeting at the shelter, the team received insight into how it works: procedures of adopting pets and a very basic IT environment in the shelter (it is quite obvious — most of money should be spent on taking care of pets). Of great help was the fact that the shelter cooperated with volunteering photographers that took nice pictures of every dog for adoption. These photos are being used in the app.
IT team and shelter staff discussed their needs and possible solutions.
Next step, a very important one, were a few consecutive meetings in Volanto, when people discussed how to transform ideas into a specification. It was a crucial stage, since the group consisted of people who had never worked together before. They finally got the time they needed to integrate into one team while sketching, discussing and prototyping. Slack, Trello and a private group on Facebook were tools facilitating communication within the team.
After about two months of hard work, the team was ready to show the prototype to the shelter staff. When Piotr Świniarski and Grzegorz Zalewski from the shelter saw the app, and spent some time playing with it, it was clear they liked it. The team got a final feedback on what else can be improved and got back to the final stage of work.
The day of uploading the app to Google Play was coming. It became a quite tense ordeal, since a press conference had been set in advance. “Will we manage to fix bugs before the official announcement?”, “Will the good news reach the audience?” were our main concerns. Hectic time of many calls, meetings, arrangements.
3…, 2…, 1…!
The press conference was also a time when mayor Adamowicz thanked the team for their hard work, stressing their support in solving a great challenge. — We need the pet adoption process to be as short as possible and we knew from the beginning that technology can help in it. It was a brilliant idea, that a group of volunteers, including the ones from GdanskLAB, developed such an application.
It was probably the first time in Poland when so many national media outlets broadcasted news about a city application. TVN, TVP, Polsat, Gazeta Wyborcza, Radio Zet, and others covered the topic. Also media important for tech community, like Antyweb.pl and Spider’s Web, published information on the app. This way wide audience in Poland gained the opportunity to find out about main features of the application:
• swiping the profiles of pets, including photos and descriptions
• selecting favorite pets
• advanced search (age, sex, breed etc.)
• general rules for adoption
• contact details
• micro-payments feature for supporting the shelter
Na4Łapy seems to be a success on many fields.
The new way of solving social and IT issues was introduced to the shelter. People from different areas of Gdansk IT ecosystem met and made friends working together. GdanskLAB proved its role as a single point of contact for innovative ideas generated in the city hall. Code for Poland Trojmiasto showed its potential for social innovation. We all experienced a great sense of cooperation among people with different backgrounds: shelter staff, city hall workers, coders, IT project managers, businessmen.
The project is not over. Development of iOS version has already begun and we know that shelters from other regions of Poland are interested in joining the app. Since Na4Łapy is an open source project, the integration of other shelters into the app should be easy. This way, a project made in Gdansk can help pets in a whole Poland.
Written by: Krzysztof Garski, Mayor’s Office in Gdansk
