With amazing innovations in social apps, app developers are finding new ways to find people lost in disasters, connect neighbors in good exchanges, and help excess food find the homeless.
In a world where stories of hackers stealing passwords and crashing websites are more and more common, it’s refreshing to hear that there are a few more civically minded hackers out there. Recently, thousands of these big-hearted hackers put their collective brains together for a global marathon hacking session in over 19 cities.
Out of the 75 Random Hacks of Kindness solutions—or RHoK (“rock”)—that took place at Google’s Mountain View campus, three were chosen for outstanding contributions: a text-based extension of Google’s popular crisis person finder, a neighborhood resource alert system, and a platform that connects nearby excess food to the needy. RHoK’s international barrage of hacktivism is just the latest pro-social programming event in what is quickly becoming a fixture in the government and nonprofit innovation space.
The sky’s the limit. What would you love to see possible in the next 20 or so years?
