World<http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/coding_a_better_world#When:20:00:50Z>
SSIR Articles
For lawyers or doctors eager to lend their professional energy to good
causes, it’s fairly straightforward to find pro bono opportunities. But
what if your work involves writing code or fixing bugs? Software
developers, technical writers, and other IT professionals who want to
volunteer may not know where to begin looking for causes that make use of
their expertise.
SocialCoding4Good <http://socialcoding4good.org/> (SC4G) aims to fill this
gap by developing an online platform to match skilled employees from the
technology <http://www.ssireview.org/topics/category/technology_design>sector
with causes that need technical help. An initiative of Benetech, a
nonprofit pioneer in leveraging technology for social good, SC4G focuses
specifically on opensource projects that address humanitarian issues. Known
as HFOSS for humanitarian free and open source software, such projects are
proliferating to address causes ranging from human rights to global
literacy.
“Open-source projects are perfectly suited to volunteers,” explains SC4G
leader Gerardo Capiel, vice president of engineering for Benetech. The
open-source Firefox browser, for instance, has been developed and improved
by thousands of volunteers collaborating from around the world. Why not do
the same, he reasoned, to speed the development of innovative tools to
protect human rights workers, improve food supply chains in
drought-stricken regions, or achieve other social benefits?
Seed funding from the Knight Foundation through the Silicon Valley
Community Foundation has enabled SC4G to launch a pilot with HFOSS “sister
organizations,” as Capiel describes them. Although not formally connected,
organizations such as FrontlineSMS and Benetech are like-minded when it
comes to using technological innovation to solve tricky social and
environmental problems. They also need more extended volunteer engagement
than a weekend-long burst of hackathon energy.
The Guardian Project <https://guardianproject.info/>, for example, is
building tools on the Android mobile platform to ensure safer communication
channels for those working under high-risk conditions. “These tools make
secure communication possible in sensitive areas,” explains Guardian’s
Derek Halliday. Having a safe way to gather and send information via mobile
device, protect online contacts, or just keep your web browsing history
private can be a lifesaver for human rights workers, journalists, health
workers, and citizen activists in political hotspots.
The Guardian Project’s work has attracted grant funding and government
support, “but we don’t have the funds to really ramp up resources,”
Halliday says. Developer headcount runs to “the tens,” he estimates, rather
than hundreds. Through SC4G, Halliday is anticipating an influx of highly
skilled technical innovators to advance the Guardian Project’s cutting-edge
mobile tools on a limited budget.
On the other end of this equation, technology companies see SC4G as a way
to offer employees <http://www.ssireview.org/tags/Employment> new
opportunities for skills-based volunteering. VMware, a global cloud
virtualization company based in Palo Alto, Calif., is the first to commit
to the initiative, giving each employee five paid days per year to devote
to “causes they care about, things that are closest to their hearts,” says
Nicola Acutt, director of the VMware Foundation.
Through SC4G, VMware’s global workforce of 12,000 “can leverage their
specialized skills to have a bigger impact,” Acutt predicts, “and find
opportunities that spark their passions.” What might software engineers
gain in return? “Leadership experience, working in new situations—there’s a
whole host of potential soft skills,” she adds.
SC4G is developing its own tools to fine-tune matching opportunities
between HFOSS projects and interested
volunteers<http://www.ssireview.org/tags/Volunteering>.
“We want to pair up the right developer with the right project,” Capiel
says. “We’re breaking projects into small bits so that it’s easy for lots
of people to collaborate.”

The Neighborhood Visualizer [urbmet.org], developed by MIT PhD candidate David Quinn and IST PhD candidate Daniel Wiesmann, aims to bring about a better understanding about urban patterns that relate to material use and energy use.

TC-SIM is an interactive simulation tool that allows users to make choices about their future lifestyles in order to reduce transport carbon emissions.

In the simulation the stakeholders are able to make decisions about the packaging of low emission vehicles, alternative fuels, pricing regimes, public transport, walking and cycling, urban planning (strategic and local urban design), ICT developments, “smarter choices” (travel planning and car sharing), ecological driving and lower speeds, freight transport logistics use, long distance travel substitution (air to rail) and air demand reduction.