Small steps, huge impact: Good Karma app by ‘GDG Nordics Open Source Projects’ connecting volunteers across Europe
Greek storyteller Aesop once said: “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” That’s what the GDG West Sweden team — including Prajit Datta, Shubhangi Das Barman, Erik Ljung, and Frank Bendik — had in mind when they first sat together in February 2022 at a Student Dorm of Aarhus University, Denmark, to brainstorm an idea of an app that would help people explore the different volunteering opportunities in their area as well as filter them on the basis of interests, location and age group. That’s how the idea for the Good Karma app came into life — and after that, they got to work, using some popular Google technologies like Firebase, Flutter, and Android Studio.
Making volunteering easier
The fast-paced, ever-changing reality of the 21st century made the team rethink the ways people are engaging in volunteering activities and thus making their impact on society. Surely not everyone has the possibility or resources needed to take part in bigger, long-term projects, yet many people would still love to dedicate part of their time to making the world a better place.
Their goal was to create a solution that would be successfully connecting volunteers in the long run in the post-pandemic world — a world that has shown us how important it is to make information easily and quickly accessible, especially online.
Keeping that in mind, the team identified 5 areas of impact for the Good Karma users to choose from: Environment, Health, Children and Youth, Education and Gender Diversity. Volunteering in each of those sectors — even if a single user is only able to dedicate a couple of hours each month — will bring in visible and lasting results in no time.
Connecting people, building a community
As experience shows, it might sometimes be difficult to bring people from different cultural backgrounds together and make them connect over a common goal, even if they already live in the same area and share the same interest. This also could be changed with the Good Karma app, which offers its users a possibility of meeting new people with similar interests and worldview, who would like to spend their time giving back to the community.
Thanks to Good Karma, users interested in volunteering can either create their own events dedicated to a specific cause or join other initiatives happening in the area. The goal is to bring together a network of diverse people: teachers, professors, students, philanthropists, etc. Once this network is established, new ideas will emerge and grow, contributing to building lasting relationships between volunteers. Sense of individual satisfaction and happiness can help create a responsible society and set a good example for the future generation.
What’s next for Good Karma?
The teams dream is to make the app open source and pool in talented developers from across Europe to develop the app even more and increase its reach. This would allow to create other features to be added to the already existing ones, like the possibility of creating an awareness campaign for a cause and raising funds for it at the community level with the platform. The app was launched for Android in January 2023 and the creators hope to track the success of it for the following six months in order to improve the already existing interface. The goal being the same as always: easy access to volunteering information and possibility of connecting with like-minded people over a common goal.
Towards a community of open-source contributors
The team, being also the GDG Nordics organizers, hopes that the launch of Good Karma will inspire other amazing developers in the Nordics to contribute their time and expertise and create a multitude of open-source solutions focusing on common good.
With that, we invite all of you to become a part of the Google Developers Nordics — Open Source Community and start making the world a better place — one line of code at a time.
