Hack4Impact and #CivicHacking at PennApps
During PennApps XIII, Penn’s student-run college hackathon, Hack4Impact had the privilege of leading the second-ever Civic Hacking workshop, which was previously led by the Chief Data Officer for the City of Philadelphia Tim Wisniewski and the Code for Philly brigade of Code for America.
Civic Hacking Workshop
Last Fall, PennApps introduced Routes — a way of providing additional resources and incentives when people hack on specific themes. Hack4Impact was glad to see the introduction of a Route related to social impact, which would encourage projects tackling important societal issues.
At PennApps X (Fall 2015), our very own Education Chair Ben Sandler was part of the ThirdEye team, a Top 10 Finalist and winner of Most Intuitive Interface. ThirdEye empowers visually impaired persons by verbally recognizing what’s in front of them. This PennApps, two more Hack4Impact developers, Abhinav Suri and Hunter Lightman, reached the Top 10 with leARn, a Google Cardboard app to explore health, science, and physics that won the VR/AR Route Prize (we have another blog post about leARn coming up!).
Inspired by the potential of PennApps projects, we compiled a list of high-impact projects ideas for workshop attendees.
- Crowdfunding platform that helps students pay for textbooks and other supplies over the course of a two/four-year degree
- Multi-lingual schedule reminder texting app for newly-arrived refugees and immigrants to the United States
- Using data science to help local organizations and city governments predict the prevalence of negative health factors
- Make encryption accessible and easy-to-use for journalists
We also asked members of the audience to share their own ideas.
“Running the Civic Hacking workshop was very rewarding because I reflected on my journey with tech and social impact and thought about how to convey my passion to others,” said Yoni Nachmany, Marketing & Branding Chair. “I‘m glad to see PennApps grow as a platform for social change.”
Below, we’ve highlighted winners of project categories related to social impact, using their DevPost descriptions.
Project Highlights
WINNER: PennApps XIII Social Impact/Civic Hacking Route Prize: Foodship
“A web app connecting homeless shelters to restaurants willing to donate leftover food
Inspiration
This cold winter, we’ve seen too many people without homes brave the bitter cold in search of food. We’ve also seen countless restaurants just trash their leftover food. Foodship aims to connect homeless shelters with these restaurants. Either party can look for nearby shelters/restaurants at the touch of a button. This way, no one is trudging through the ankle-deep snow, from door-to-door looking for restaurants/homeshelters.”
WINNER PennApps XIII Health Route Prize: DataDoc
“Do not fear the Doctor is here, right in your pockets! DataDoc recommends treatment of disease using Machine Learning
Inspiration
Everyday, a massive amount of digital data points are generated from countless personal medical devices, such as blood glucose monitors and insulin pumps. Countless more data remains uncollected. Recent advances in machine learning have made it possible to use more than just aggregate data of large patient population to improve patient care; medical care can be improved for individual patients.”
WINNER Best App that Improves Diabetes Patients’ Daily Lives, sponsored by Johnson and Johnson: Big Hero You
“Fitness based app that encourages diabetic patients to explore the city they live in
Inspiration
We wanted to revolutionize the way people think about exercise outside of the gym. Exercise does not have to be restricted to one place, it can include exploring the city you live in.”
See you next PennApps!
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