Dev, meet Tech was a one-day event for students addressing ways to use technology for positive development. About one third of the attendees were from a technical background. The rest were from a range of different disciplines with a range of different skillsets and outlooks on life. The one thing all attendees had in common is their drive to be global citizens and in some way improve today’s world. The event was run twice and detailed event overviews can be viewed here: LinkedIn
After our speaker series in the morning, the cohorts were split into teams and spent the rest of the day developing a solution which uses technology to provoke a positive change of any size and any kind. We had some fantastic mentors to help guide the teams and an atmosphere of collaboration was always present.
Alan Donoghue
Eoghan Martin
Technology is all around us and holds huge potential to provoke positive changes. Dev, meet Tech was organized due to a trend that we've been seeing in the tech scene: we're not being exposed to the power that technology can have to provoke real positive social change. We realized that technology can be used to do good by anybody. All that's required is an innovative mind and some basic tech skills. From this we spawned the idea of Dev, meet Tech.
40% of attendees were non-tech students. This provided the teams on the day with lots of different outlooks to problems and how technology can be used to tackle them. A selection of business, poltics and art students were attracted to the event, as well as tech students, who all brought their own skillsets and views on a wide range of issues in today's world.
For Dev, meet Tech, we are trying to move away from traditional hackathon concepts (we even avoid using the word ”hackathon” because of its baggage). We did however still use regular ”hacking food”, like pizza and beer :) In the morning for each event we held a speaker series made up of three fantastic speakers who all provided the cohorts with food for thought to set them up for the rest of the day.
“It wasn't like a 'typical' hackathon, it was more than that.”
We have now showed for ourselves and the attendees of Dev, meet Tech that our hypothesis holds:
Students can make a real difference using technology
Technology can empower anyone to provoke a positive change in this world. We hope to awaken students to this power and how it can be utilized to benefit today's world.
This website allows users to add and browse through some of the most creative fundraising ideas, view fundraising ratings and get in touch with like minded fundraisers.
The goal here is to give fundraisers the ability to asses the feasability of a fundraising method by reading about other people's experiences. Fundivate may also inspire new and creative ways of raising funds for non-profits.
Team: Donal Martin and Eoghan Martin.
1000 Welcomes is a website aimed at bringing refugees and new community members into the community. The ultimate goal is inclusion.
This website allows for an interaction between the local community and it's new and incoming members. It provides an outlet for seasoned members of a community to give helpful advice to incoming members and also allows for the setting up of meet-ups between local community members and incoming members.
Team: Ali Kelly, Kieran Fraser, Sarah Kingston and Shauna Byrne.
Foster is a web application with the goal of helping get deprecated computers from industry to people in need. The amount of computers that get sold on for refabrication after use from companies like Intel is astounding.
Using this app, a time can be set up for when to collect the computers, they are then brought to a refurbishment company and from there, the app can also be used to distribute these newly refurbished machines to people who are most in need. These people will "foster" the newly refurbished machines.
Team: Arpad Papp, Deirdre Meehan, Kevin Waters and Laura McMahon.
Have you been wondering how the earthquake recovery is going in Nepal? Or what the inside story is with clothing factories in Bangladesh?
What's Not News uses public voting to dictate which stories are most popular from around the world with a focus on news that may not be in mainstream news mediums. Verified writers can gain an online reputation by upvotes from readers on their writings.
Team: Gytis Jankauskas, Paul Whelan and Rachael Fitzimons.
To use this application, each user sets up a profile. Verified charities can set up jobs that they need done, for example, volunteering at an upcoming event. The users can then swipe through all of the jobs that need doing in their local area; right if they'd like to do the job, left if they're not interested. If a user swipes right and the charity feels that they would be a good fit for the job, the charity can open a stream of communication and get the swiper on board.
Team: Amanda Mrnak, Louis Gallagher, Robyn Keogh and Yana Kullzhskaya.
“I now understand how technology can be used do more.”
Plux spawned from a project for a class entitled Design Entrepreneurship. This project was developed over the course of a week as part of a team of 4 interdisiplinary students. A works-like prototype was first built to test the technology. Following this, an aesthetically pleasing design was conceptualized.
This project involved ethnographic research, brand development, website development, product design, engineering and presentation skills.
Choose a ubiquitous product and improve it.
Cole Cravath
Eoghan Martin
Ethan Sauer
Tori Zellerhoff
Connections made simple.
The design pocess used for this project went like this...
"When I was young I electrocuted myself because there was no socket cover."
"You can’t put your furniture flush or put the plug at a certain angle."
"When I was young I electrocuted myself because there was no socket cover."
Can easily electrocute yourself
Bend prongs when trip/pull on cord
Too thick to fit furniture flush
Length = 3 inches
We then combined our ethnographic and secondary research to ideate on potential designs..
40% of the cohort were non-tech students. This provided the teams on the day with lots of different outlooks to problems and how technology can be used to tackle them. We had a selection of business, poltics and art students, as well as tech students, who all brought their own skillsets and views on a wide range of issues in today's world.
For Dev, meet Tech, we tried to move away from traditional hackathon concepts (we even avoid using the word ”hackathon” because of its baggage). We did however still use regular ”hacking food”, like pizza and beer :) In the morning we held a speaker series made up of three fantastic speakers who all provided the cohort with food for thought to set them up for the rest of the day.
We iterated through multiple designs and 3D printed...
40% of the cohort were non-tech students. This provided the teams on the day with lots of different outlooks to problems and how technology can be used to tackle them. We had a selection of business, poltics and art students, as well as tech students, who all brought their own skillsets and views on a wide range of issues in today's world.
For Dev, meet Tech, we tried to move away from traditional hackathon concepts (we even avoid using the word ”hackathon” because of its baggage). We did however still use regular ”hacking food”, like pizza and beer :) In the morning we held a speaker series made up of three fantastic speakers who all provided the cohort with food for thought to set them up for the rest of the day.
Picture of someone using the prototype...
Using the insights gathered from customer feedback and research efforts, a new design was modelled in Solid Works.
Was designed to be this and that...
