Using tech for social good
Who we are and what we do
Founded at the University of Pennsylvania, Hack4Impact is a nonprofit that helps community organizations develop software solutions to enable greater change.
We believe in technology’s huge potential to empower activists and humanitarians to create lasting and impactful social change. Our mission is to foster the wider adoption of software as a tool for social impact.
We collaborate with 3–4 organizations per semester to develop applications that we believe have great potential for social impact. Each organization is paired with a team of Penn students, consisting of a PM, a tech lead, designers, and developers. To date, we have worked on projects on microfinance, education, juvenile justice, hunger resource mapping, donor engagement, middle school literacy, and nonprofit overhead awareness.
One of our more-recognized apps is Philly Food Finder. In Philadelphia county, 22% of residents are food-insecure. While there are food assistance programs — including food pantries, soup kitchens, and senior meal sites — available to Philadelphians, such resources may be difficult for those in need to learn about or find.
Our client, the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council (FPAC), tackled this problem by creating the Food Resources Toolkit, a comprehensive guide to food resources in Philadelphia. Our task was to adapt the Food Resources Toolkit for the web — to develop a central web-based tool where individuals can find all food resources that are available within their zip code. Our client also emphasized the need for the website to be easily updatable with new or updated food resources and information.
Our vision is a tech industry that emphasizes social impact as a core tenet of success, and we are inspired to see organizations similar to Hack4Impact opening up across the country in academic institutions.
Read more about our peers:
- Stanford’s CS+Social Good
- HackDuke
- MIT’s CodeforGood
- NYUAD International Hackathon for Social Good in the Arab World
- USC’s Code the Change
Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, and our newsletter! If you have any questions for us, check out our website and feel free to email us at admin@hack4impact.org.
