7/6/14 UPDATE: We did it! YOTHEWORLD won the People’s Choice Award from the Yo Hackathon in San Francisco. The $2500 prize money is on its way to Watsi. Thank you so much for your support! There was no way that we could have done it without you. And a shoutout to Business Insider, The Guardian, and Watsi for helping us with publicity. Thank you, thank you.
TLDR: 1. Download the Yo app 2. Yo at username YOTHEWORLD 3. Save a little girl’s life
Last Friday, I went to the Yo Hackathon with my friends Sebastian Merz, Sophia Chung, and Kyle Ong in San Francisco. As you might have guessed from its name, the Yo Hackathon was organized by the infamous Yo app, which allows people to do one thing: send and receive the message “Yo” to and from their friends. The purpose of the hackathon was to encourage participants to think of new ways to use Yo.
The Hackathon had two prizes: the judges’ prize and the most subscribers prize, both worth $2500 USD. The judges’ prize was given out at the end of the night, but the most subscribers prize will be given out this week to the team with the most number of subscribers (people who Yo at them) by July 4th, 11:59pm PST.
And from the second prize came the inspiration for YOTHEWORLD.
We want to take advantage of the second $2500 prize and do something good and useful with it. If YOTHEWORLD gets the most Yo’s by July 4th, 11:59pm PST and wins the $2500 prize, we will donate all of the money to a girl named Malaika. She’s a four year-old girl from Haiti with atrioventricular canal defect. This means that blood flows through her heart abnormally. If she doesn’t get surgery soon for it, her condition may turn fatal.
We don’t need this $2500, but Malaika does. We saw what other teams are doing, ranging from Yo-ing all your friends when your morning toast is made to Yo-ing all your friends when you want to play basketball. We’re not saying that the other teams aren’t doing cool things, but if they win, they’re pocketing the $2500.
On a broader level, YOTHEWORLD aspires to show everyone how powerful online donor charities like Watsi are. They represent a new wave of charities that allow donors to track exactly who and where their money goes to. It’s a freaking awesome model. We want to show everyone in the world how awesome it is.
Join us for this campaign. All you have to do is Yo us at YOTHEWORLD. For more information, please visit http://yotheworld.org/.
Yo is simple. And so is YOTHEWORLD.
