Meet the tech volunteer Alexander!
The CBS platform hadn’t been possibility to create without all the hours over 150 volunteers have laid down to create and build a tool to early detect disease outbreaks for Red Cross. I have talked to Alexander, a tech volunteer and a member of the Core Team about how it is to be a volunteer in Red Cross, contributing to the CBS platform.
Hi! My name is Alexander and I am working as a system expert at Telenor. On my spare time do I volunteer in Red Cross as a tech volunteer. Except for that, do I like music and art, and my favourite cuisine is Mexican!
I joined the CBS project because I wanted to use my time to contribute to the world in some way. When I heard about being a tech volunteer in Red Cross, I thought this would be perfect. I use a wheelchair, that sometime can make it difficult to go places for volunteering. To be a tech volunteer allows me to work as volunteer form home, that makes it easy to contribute.
What I really like with being a volunteer is the close bound the volunteers have to each other, its almost like a family. Even though we often work from different locations, do we socialize over net and also at events like Code Evenings and Codeathon. I really appreciate the social network of tech volunteers working for a greater good, we are actually saving lives with this platform!
During my time as volunteer have I learned to be patient. When volunteers do the development of a platform does this require a lot of time, since its done voluntary often after job and school, and the progress can sometime go slowly. Additionally, the motivation is all about helping people, that changes your mindset in a way.
I will encourage interested to join us at Codeathons or Code evening if you want to contribute, this is the easiest way to onboard as volunteer. If that’s not possible, join the discussion on Slack and the volunteers will be more than glad to help you.
Next Codeathon will be in Brussel from 16th to 19th of October, if you are a developer and based in Brussel, come join us at the Codeathon!
Here is more information about the event: https://www.croix-rouge.be/codeathon-2019/
Wish you all a lovely day!
