BBBS got hacked!
(Left to Right) Jose Manriquez, Westley Bonack, Veronica Fox (BBBS), Jamie Tran, Dan Bunker and Pham Thang
We were lucky to participate in Hack4Austin last weekend, where talented developers banded together to solve tech challenges for local nonprofits. Each organization pitched their idea for an application that could help them better serve the community. We chose a challenge that is near and dear to our mentors’ hearts — we pitched an app that would allow Bigs and Littles to find age-appropriate, low-cost, fun activities in the Austin area.
Finding such activities may not sound challenging, but it really is, especially when you consider that nearly 1,000 Bigs need to find an interesting, affordable activity that is appropriate for their Little. (A 7-year-old may enjoy finger painting, but a 17-year-old may not!) Additionally, many event sites don’t allow for filtering of age-appropriateness (serving beer or showing R-rated movies? No, thank you!).
The BBBS @Hack4Austin team workin’ hard! #hack4change #ATX #almostthere pic.twitter.com/OpP3zN7rII
— BBBS Central Texas (@bigmentoring) May 31, 2014
So, you put 5 developers at a table for 36-hours straight and they come up with a pretty fabulous product. Our awesome Hack4Austin team (Dan Bunker, Jamie Tran, Jose Manriquez, Pham Thang and Westley Bonack) created a web site that will allow anybody to search for kid-friendly activities throughout Austin. It even allows for crowd-sourcing so that anyone can recommend an event that Bigs and Littles may find interesting! The team is still putting on the finishing touches, but they aim to have it complete by mid-July. Stay tuned for the big debut!
Last, but certainly not least — we’d like to thank some special people. Thanks to all the developers and Stefan Sinclair, to Tech Ranch for hosting the event and to Trish Ellis of Talent Lattice for making it all possible. All of you are truly changing the world through technology!
