It strikes me that more and more people across a varied range of industries are realising that their skill sets can be utilised in the most incredible ways for community good. In todays digital age, a solid online presence is becoming increasingly important for building a strong network of support for Non-profits and Charities – and enabling this often relies on skills that lie either outside of the traditional expertise of teams behind NPOs, or perhaps more importantly, outside of the available budget.
This problem has been the driving force behind the rise of charity ‘hackathon’s’ – events where IT professionals from all areas get together and listen as charities pitch the IT challenges that they face, and proceed to knuckle down for an intensive session fixing glitches, building websites, creating online forms, apps….you get the gist. These guys donate their time and their expertise for charity, and the results have been incredible.
Locally, we have some great people who run Impact NPO in Auckland (soon to be rolled out both nationally and internationally in 2015). Richard Scott-Will-Harknett, Lynn Shrewsbury and Jonathan Scher are the three awesome humans behind this feel-good endeavour and all come equipped with years of experience and a wealth of contacts in the IT community.
Recently, ImpactNPO has had multiple success stories following their intensive weekends of IT madness. You can read all about those here.
The next ImpactNPO is being held in the event space at GridAKL, 132 Halsey Street over the weekend of March 20-22. If you would like to be involved (you absolute legend you!) get more info and enrolment deets here – THEY EVEN FEED YOU! Win win situation.
Casey is the Community Co-ordinator at GridAKL, when she is not wrangling events or making sure our residents are happy she volunteers her time to the organisation Nga Rangatahi Toa. To meet Casey and the rest of our awesome team why not request a tour of GridAkL by clicking here.
