This article was published on December 1, 2011

Global ‘Random Hacks of Kindness’ to benefit social good this weekend


Global ‘Random Hacks of Kindness’ to benefit social good this weekend

This weekend, some of the best and brightest minds from 25 locations all over the globe will get together for an event called “Random Hacks of Kindness” to collaborate on solving huge global challenges.

Big named companies and organizations like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA, HP, and the World Bank have created this event to invite experts in global issues to collaborate with talented developers and engineers. This year’s hackathon’s attendance should be impressive, according to the venues we spoke with.

Each location is focusing on solving different problems, with San Francisco’s local event taking a look at bicycle commute mapping and emergency drinking water. In San Francisco, Voxeo Labs will be the host. This year, events are being held in cities like Philadelphia, New York, London, Toronto, Tel Aviv, and Zurich. For a full listing of events, check out the Random Hacks of Kindness site.

In recent years, Random Hacks of Kindness events have made an impact on social good by turning out mapping tools to report bushfires, apps to connect food stamp recipients with sources of fresh produce, and visualization tools around landslide risks.

Johnny Diggz, Chief Technology Evangelist for Tropo and founder of Geeks Without Bounds says about “RHoK”:

When disaster strikes, more than ever, people need to communicate and we are excited to see RHoK developers use Tropo to help in crisis situations.

Tropo is a service similar to Twilio, which lets you embed calling and texting features into your own app. Imagine the possibilities for disaster related communications utilizing that technology.

This weekend during Random Hacks of Kindness, some of those possibilities and ideas will become actual working applications thanks to thousands of developers and thought-leaders worldwide.

Random Hacks of Kindness

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