Earth Hour Hack Day at FINN.no
How we as developers and designers can save the world. Even if it’s only a little bit.
This planet we live on is surely a wonderful one. It’s unique and the only one we have. That’s why we wanted to engage our users to be more conscious about the environmental challenges we‘re up against and invite them to stand together with us.
Earth Hour 2019
Luckily we didn’t have to start from scratch. Earth hour has been a worldwide movement organized by WWF and has been growing to engage more than 7,000 cities and towns across 187 countries. The event is held annually and encourages individuals, communities, and businesses to turn off non-essential electric lights for one hour towards the end of March, as a symbol of commitment to the planet.
Earth Hour 2019 is scheduled for March 30, from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.
What we wanted to do
We wanted to use Earth Hour as a stepping stone for what we could do in the FINN-app. 🤔 “What if we simply invited people to join us for Earth Hour?”
1. You open up the app on the week of Earth Hour.
2. You get a pop-up invitation to join for Earth Hour.
3. You opt-in or out. Or read more about Earth Hour.
4. (Saturday, March 30th) We send you a reminder when it is time to shut off the lights.
5. Afterward, we can post the number of people who joined on SoMe to spread the word and thank everyone who participated.’
Collaboration and unity
While planning work on this feature, we asked ourselves why we were the only ones doing something like this in our community. Environmental issues aren’t only impacting FINN.no though, it affects us all.
That’s why we reached out to our friends in the developer and designer communities of Oslo and asked if they’d join in making something Earth Hour related in their services. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and several people said that they wished their company could initiate more idealistic work like this.
Hack day — February 21st 2019
Companies present:
• FINN.no
• Beining & Bogen
• Fremtind
• Peil
• VG
For this hack day, we were a total of 5 companies with 20 engaged and motivated people ready to try to save the earth just a little bit. Each in our own way, and each in our own services. WWF Norge was also thrilled to hear that we were planning a hack day and tried to spread the word of Earth Hour to all of our users, and were kind enough to give us an introduction to Earth Hour and kick off the hacking.
As the day progressed it was interesting to see all the different concepts come to life in the different services. One team made an Earth Hour Quiz in their news app so that their users learned what it was all about. Another one made a really fun dark mode switch on their site and had plans to continue after the hack day to expand it even more. Me, Vadym (iOS) and Harish (Android) from FINN.no made what we had planned all along. A really simple way to reach out to the hundreds of thousand people using our app every day.
Agenda for the Earth Hour Hack Day
09.00 — Registering, breakfast and networking
09.30 — Welcome, introduction round
09.45 — WWF — Earth Hour
10.00 — Group photos
10.15 — Start hacking!
12.00 — Lunch + Mario Kart Tournament
13.00 — Keep hacking
16.30 — Pizza + presentations
17.00 — Plus/Delta
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” — Henry Ford
Summary
I believe that tech companies around the world can do more in terms of raising awareness around the environmental issues we have before us. This year’s Earth Hour Hack Day was simply an initiative to just doing something. Anything. And why do it alone when we are a part of a community with so many talented designers and developers that want to do that little something to make a difference?
This is the first of many initiatives that us developers and designers in FINN.no hope to contribute with. Initiatives where we can focus on the greater good. We will definitely consider repeating this event in 2020.
Holler at me if you and your company are interested in joining.
