Tag: programming

A web app for tiny tasks and a crowd of volunteers

BrightWorks

URL: tasket.dharmafly.com

People like to help out with a good cause, but it can be difficult to find the time. What if, through the Web, we could gather enough people and bring them together to achieve something great?

At Dharmafly, we’ve been hard at work creating an open source tool called “Tasket“, which we hope will do just that. It’s a visually immersive web app, riffing off some of our data visualisation work, that engages volunteers in performing tiny tasks for a cause.

Essentially, it’s a “micro-volunteering” task management tool that lets people create tasks that need doing. Anyone can claim those tasks and Tasket helps everyone track the progress of the community. Read More »

Teen Hackers Take Over Google

Hacking in full swing (by harry-m)

At the weekend, I helped mentor a group of tech-minded teenagers at the community-led event, “Young Rewired State“. Held at Google’s London HQ, this was a two-day, action-packed programme for 15-18 year olds to build something better with government data on the web. And the results were truly impressive.

Young people are sometimes written-off as being apathetic, or handed patronising websites and services to interact with. Here was their chance to show the kinds of services they really want and to demonstrate that, given access to the right kinds of data and a little support along the way, they are more than capable of building it themselves. Read More »