This summer, we delivered our first-ever series of online Social Hackathons in collaboration with UCL Listen and Respond. From 13-17 July, we held five very different, but much-needed Hackathon events.
With Covid-19 impacting almost all areas of life, including the charity sector, it seemed there was a different air surrounding our Hackathons like never before. Charities had to face issues they never saw coming, and students had a new-found desire to help communities in need and leave a positive impact, in whatever way they could.
Some of these Hackathons included developing a more inclusive online employment process for people with Asperger’s, helping a community organisation source tech devices to combat digital poverty for their beneficiaries, and advising a charity on how to redesign their website to engage a wide variety of stakeholders.
Dora attended one of our virtual Hackathons, helping Anna Fiorentini Theatre and Film School explore ways to secure urgently-needed funding to keep the school running for young children.
Another participant was Edie, who was tasked with helping East London-based Housing Association Poplar HARCA boost their online presence and improve their volunteer recruitment process, in light of having to transition online to adapt in the wake of Covid-19.
Although this was our first time hosting an online Social Hackathon week, UCL volunteers really rose to the challenge and delivered exceptional results that impressed all five organisations involved.
Our UCL volunteers were absolute superstars; collaborating online over Zoom (which was still relatively new to everyone at the time), working across different time zones and having to meet their brief in 6 hours was definitely out of their comfort zone but this did not hamper the quality of the work they produced - a round of applause for all our volunteers involved!
These virtual Hackathons were a huge success and gave us the confidence to host more in the near future.