Santa Clara U Hosts Second Hack for the Homeless Event
Santa Clara University is preparing to host
its second annual 24-hour Hack for the Homeless event from 10 a.m. on February
28 to 10 a.m. on March 1.
Last year's inaugural hackathon involved about 50 students from Santa Clara
University and San Jose State University. This year's organizers have opened up
the event to students from other schools in the Bay Area and are hoping for
about 100 participants.
The students will work in teams or individually to code smartphone apps to
help homeless people find services, food and shelter. The university worked with
the nonprofit organization, Community
Technology Alliance (CTA), to define the projects the students will work on.
This year, Hack for the Homeless participants will help with the CTA program Mobile4All, which is a community-based mobile phone service for homeless and
extremely low income people in Santa Clara County. Companies donate the phones,
and CTA provides the phones to people in need along with a tailored service, and
the recipients use the phones to communicate with potential employers and
landlords, follow up with case managers, schedule appointments and connect with
friends and family.
Vincente Ciancio, a computer science and engineering major at Santa Clara
University, organized both Hack for the Homeless events. The hackathon is
intended to get students "to think beyond the apps they would use and consider
the perspective of homeless users," while getting coding experience beyond the
classroom, according to information from the university.
Students donate their prototype code to the university, which in turn donates
it to the CTA. Hackathon projects are judged on their user interface,
functionality, level of difficulty and other criteria. Last year's first place
prize was $1,000.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].