Hackathoning for Youth

From VPP report

I stumbled upon the idea of using “hackathons” to develop ideas for helping youth in the Venture Philanthropy Partners’ report about youthConnect. I’ve heard of hackathons but had never thought to put it together with a social justice goal. It’s got many of the qualities of crowdsourcing, but it’s the face-to-face time that inevitably leads to new and stronger relationships. If you design it right, you would even be able to strengthen those weak links between different networks in your city.

Let VPP speak for itself. Here is its description from the report From A (Net)Work in Progress:

On a hot day in August 2012, members from the youthCONNECT network piled into the VPP offices, ready to sit in a conference room until they came up with concrete solutions for the transportation challenges facing the youth their organizations serve. Five hours later, at the end of VPP’s first “hackathon,” network partners were able to collectively identify several ways to help youth better navigate the D.C.-area transportation system.

Hackathons are popping up around the country as a way for a broad base of people to intensely focus on one problem and collectively determine the most effective solutions. First started in the software industry, other sectors have since taken note. Instead of software developers, VPP brought together some of the best youth developers in the region.

youthCONNECT network members divided up into teams across organizations to come up with solutions to the hurdle of transportation, a topic they agreed is a fundamental barrier to achieving success. They segmented suggestions into solutions for today, for tomorrow and in their “wildest dreams.”

“The solutions we came up with were quite powerful in their simplicity,” said Nathaniel Cole, D.C. program director for Urban Alliance. “These solutions aren’t hard to enact; they just need collective support to get the decision maker’s attention. The youthCONNECT network can provide that support and get some of these things done.”

The hackathon gave the network a space to identify and develop a cohesive voice to advocate for solutions to shared challenges. This kind of collaborative work is exactly what youthCONNECT is about: combining the expertise of six great organizations to help them to do their work better and dramatically improve the lives of the youth they serve.