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Technologists and activists from all over Chicago gathered in the kCura office in the Loop for the National Day of Civic Hacking. Collaboration was the name of the game, and several strong plans for applications were put together for Chicago nonprofits such as the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago and Lakeview Pantry. With only three hours to put together a wireframe and plan for an application, teams quickly connected over lunch on the community problem they wanted to tackle. Check out a few of the teams’ ideas below:
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GLEAN
This team of 11, featuring a mix of participants working on back-end development and UX, decided to tackle Lakeview Pantry’s problem of identifying where excess food is - and how to distribute it accordingly. Their app, GLEAN, allows grocery stores with donations to notify nearby food pantries what food is available. Grocery stores can create an account and list their available food items, and food pantries can log in and “claim” those items. Plans for the app also include integration with social media, so stores can advertise their donations more efficiently.
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FAT: FAFSA App Tracker
The inspiration for this team came from an attendee who was a University of Chicago professor; she saw a need to help college students stay on track for the college financial aid process, especially for low-income at-risk students. She came in with a plan, and just needed some developers to help her create the app. By the end of the day, the team had produced a working app and a detailed plan of how the stream of communication would work for FAT: the FAFSA App Tracker. Aided by two developers from kCura, two EMBARC students and a journalism student from DePaul, Professor Micere Keels initiated an app that would send reminders to the student, track their progress on the application and also send notifications to a student’s support system such as parents or counselors.
Katie Peters is currently a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a public relations intern at kCura. Contact her at [email protected].
