IBM Teams Innovate for Right To Play Technology innovation is often a challenge for nonprofit groups. Finding funds to scope, develop, pilot and implement new and strategic technology solutions is difficult, if not impossible. Engaging bright, creative minds to support these endeavours can prove challenging when private business can offer higher salaries and leading edge tools and platforms for development. Enter the hackathon. A hackathon (also known as a hack day , hackfest or codefest ) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development , including graphic designers , interface designers and project managers , collaborate intensively on software projects in competition with other teams. These events can be general ( eg. design an app), can focus on an available set of data (eg . a transit hackathon that looks at creative ways to use publicly available transit data in an app) or can address a particular problem statement. In this case, IBM employees were invited to participate in a twoday event focused on using IBM Bluemix (IBM’s cloud platform service) , in support of developing a solution to challenges faced by three locallybased community not for profit partners . Each community p artner was asked to create and present a problem statement to spark the imagination of the hackers who were given just over 24 hours to design and prototype a solution. For Right To Play, the problem statement focused on integrating of data related to the 20 program countries in which RTP operates. Each of these countries is unique and changing day by day. Keeping on top of data, statistics and news across all of Right To Play’s program locations is complicated and takes significant time and effort. Staff operate in 20 Program countries and 7 Fundraising countries that cross 7 time zones, so managing and sharing the right data at the right time is challenging. Finding a way to find, gather, view and share information from trusted sources into a centrally accessible data source would help Right To Play: Enhance program planning quality Support donor stewardship and fundraising Redirect Program staff effort from data sharing to delivery activities Teams were given a set of data sources including: A model of Right To Play’s Theory of Change including background on how outcomes are grouped and achieved A spreadsheet summarizing program information and goals for all countries across Right To Play A variety of potential data sources where key statistical data could be found to track external measures of impact (eg World Health Organization and UNHCR) Suggestions for news coverage and social media sources for the latest news and events in each country
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IBM Teams Innovate for Right To PlayTechnology innovation is often a challenge for nonprofit groups. Finding funds to scope, develop, pilot and implement new and strategic technology solutions is difficult, if not impossible. Engaging bright, creative minds to support these endeavours can prove challenging when private business can offer higher salaries and leading edge tools and platforms for development.
Enter the hackathon.
A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects in competition with other teams. These events can be general (eg. design an app), can focus on an available set of data (eg. a transit hackathon that looks at creative ways to use publicly available transit data in an app) or can address a particular problem statement. In this case, IBM employees were invited to participate in a twoday event focused on using IBM Bluemix (IBM’s cloud platform service), in support of developing a solution to challenges faced by three locallybased community not for profit partners.
Each community partner was asked to create and present a problem statement to spark the imagination of the hackers who were given just over 24 hours to design and prototype a solution.
For Right To Play, the problem statement focused on integrating of data related to the 20 program countries in which RTP operates. Each of these countries is unique and changing day by day. Keeping on top of data, statistics and news across all of Right To Play’s program locations is complicated and takes significant time and effort. Staff operate in 20 Program countries and 7 Fundraising countries that cross 7 time zones, so managing and sharing the right data at the right time is challenging.
Finding a way to find, gather, view and share information from trusted sources into a centrally accessible data source would help Right To Play:
Enhance program planning quality Support donor stewardship and fundraising Redirect Program staff effort from data sharing to delivery activities
Teams were given a set of data sources including: A model of Right To Play’s Theory of Change including background on how outcomes are grouped and
achieved A spreadsheet summarizing program information and goals for all countries across Right To Play A variety of potential data sources where key statistical data could be found to track external measures
of impact (eg World Health Organization and UNHCR) Suggestions for news coverage and social media sources for the latest news and events in each
country
Three teams were chosen to work on this problem including, The Production Firefighters, Dream Team and Team AJIT. Teams broke off into working rooms to get started. Each room was supported by the Community Partner Representative (Tina Traini, Director – IT Systems and Solutions @ RTP), an IBM liaison (Neil De Lima, Advisory Software Engineer, and Certified Senior IT Specialist IBM Software Adoption) and a senior IBM technical resource (Wei Zheng – Senior Product Architect, InfoShpere MDM Server, IBM Analytics), who would later
serve as the judges.
Watching the teams share and develop ideas and work diligently to resolve bugs as they arose revealed a strong dedication to the project. The solutions grew and took shape through the night. Simple discussions with the group allowed the Right To Play teams to innovate and grow ideas of their own that could be applied to the problem. The teams learned how to leverage Bluemix and some even threw in Watson services to leverage additional interesting features.
On day two, each team gave a presentation that included their understanding of the problem, their approach to addressing it, the tools and applications they used in their development and a short demo of their prototype. After a brief Q&A, the judges, including guests from Right To Play, Katie Thebeau (CRM Solution Manager) and Kayla Foster (Event and Sponsorship Manager), scored each group on Innovation and Impact, Design and Completeness. Team AJIT was declared the winner and were asked to present their solution in front of the larger group of hackers and IBM staff.
While choosing a winner was mandatory, all of the teams presented solid, functional ideas, and the IBM Bluemix platform offers a lowcost, flexible way to host, highlight and analyze this data. The team at Right To Play is looking forward to future partnerships to bring these ideas to life on Bluemix.
Many thanks to the IBM organizing committee, all the teams and IBM Corporate Citizenship for this fantastic and truly innovative opportunity and for their ongoing support of Right To Play.
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