Saturday, June 21, 2014 marked the second effort of the “Goodie Hackers†to be the change they want to see in the world. Hundreds of local entrepreneurs, designers, developers, marketers, and service enthusiasts assembled in the co-working offices of Opportunity Hub in Atlanta to help 10 local organizations with various needs, all technology-related, and assist in furthering their mission for underserved communities.
For most, it was the first time experiencing what it’s like to participate in a hackathon or a tech startup. Supported by gracious sponsors like Google, who just created a $50 million fund to inspire more women to code, as well as The Awesome Foundation – Atlanta Chapter, who awarded Goodie Hack with its first grant, this is only the beginning of transforming local communities one hackathon at a time by bringing together the best and brightest minds to create change for those who lack the resources to fully accomplish their organization’s goals.
Led by Joey Womack, co-founder of sf35, an organization for high-performance capacity African American, Latino, and women entrepreneurs, the program is off to an impactful start with its sight set on creating a level playing field for those often overlooked. “Our mission is to help one billion people in underserved communities all over the world. We want to help raise their basic need averages in education, economic development, environment, and health up to their respective country’s national average,†Womack said.
For example, there are dismal reports showcasing very low graduation rates in low socioeconomic or underserved areas, especially for African American students. Many of the projects that Goodie Hack helps facilitate directly tackle these issues, via a technology-based solution such as interactive websites, mobile apps and new strategies for tech integration, to aid in raising these numbers incrementally all over the nation and tapping into the power of the digital future.
By leveraging the collective knowledge of the community, attendees gathered to create teams and come up with an idea for an innovative implementation that solves the challenges faced by their choice social enterprise. The participating organizations include: Atlanta Food & Farm, Atlanta HBCU Alliance (5K), Love Beyond Walls, Street Credit, We Cycle Atlanta, MAFDET, Inc. (Make an Awesome Future by Excellence and Thinking), Latino Connection Georgia, Community Guilds (STE(A)M Truck), AIDS Awareness Poets, and Youth Universe. The newly assembled teams bring a disruptive spirit and a wealth of new ideas that also aid in marketing challenges and operational efficiency. The winning team for the summer edition of Goodie Hack is Crime Smarts. It’s an Android app which
provides on-demand criminal law resources and crime prevention strategies, based on the founder’s book, to educate and empower youth on civil rights. The Crime Smarts team was created to serve MAFDET, Inc. (represented by Travis Townsend), founded by a group of professionals interested in eliminating the disparity in education, employment, and overall opportunity experienced by lower income individuals and minority youth in America. MAFDET achieves its mission by delivering educational and behavioral development training in four key areas: Criminal law education and crime prevention; S.T.E.M. education; (corporate socialization and etiquette training); and cultural exposure and exploration. The Goodie Hack movement began last quarter with its first event taking place early March. The participating organizations are already reaping the benefits of the program’s success. Mentor Walk, a program supporting the Campus Community Partnership Foundation, had a game created to make learning more fun and connect students to college mentors. Womack also said that in addition to the value received by the participating organizations, Goodie Hack is a rich opportunity for the attendees as it exposes more African Americans to the culture and execution of technology startups, as well as a “day-in-the-life†experience of what it’s like to be a tech entrepreneur. This is particularly impactful given Google’s recent disclosure of alarming statistics about its extreme lack of diversity and minority employees in its organization. Goodie Hack implemented educational segments covering topics such as design thinking, user experience, intellectual property, and private sessions for the non-profit organizations to learn information on how to raise money via crowdfunding platforms like Charitable.org.Goodie Hack also provided the opportunity to impact lives directly and raise awareness for Be The Match® which provides lifesaving donor matching, with a special focus on registering more African American donors. Over the past 25 years, Be The Match®, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP), has managed the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world. Each team was tasked with incorporating Be The Match into their ideas. With the city of Atlanta serving as the catalyst for this movement, the organization plans to scale and help other communities around the country as soon as possible. Patterning its efforts after the widely successful Startup Weekend which organizes local teams in different cities to launch startups, Womack says that Goodie Hack can scale in a similar manner. “We need people on the ground, mobilizing teams, securing venues and local sponsorship, reaching out to partner organizations in the social good and business space, and recruiting volunteers.†The organizing team of Goodie Hack is well
underway in mapping an ecosystem of organizations, change agents, professional talent, and you can be the next valuable resource to bring the mission to life in a community near you. You can sign up here to “Bring It To Your City” on the website, GoodieHack.com. Requests are already rolling in from cities like Miami, Orlando, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Oakland, Chicago, Detroit, and others. The team is currently pulling together recommendations on how individuals and organizations can partner with each other. They are also looking to form national partnerships to aid in activating Goodie Hack local chapters and raise funds to provide the financial resources needed to sustain this game-changing operation. For more information on how to contribute or to participate in the next Goodie Hack, visit www.goodiehack.com, or contact Joey Womack directly at joey@sf35.org. Continue the conversation socially using the following: @GoodieHack | #GoodieHack | #BeTheMatch | #AccelerateWithGoogleAuthor Candace Mitchell (@loveCandyV) is co-founder and CEO of Techturized Inc., enabling hair care personalization capabilities in the market for female consumers around the world. As a computer scientist and fellow coder, she spends her time in the lab working on the company’s first product, Myavana – a mobile social platform for black hair care, available on iOS and Android.