On the weekend, Lighthouse Labs organized and hosted the inaugural Code It Forward event, a 36-hour hackathon for charities and non-profits in Vancouver.

Developers, designers, and idea people came together for the social initiative with the intent to solve tech problems and bring best practices to the various organizations’ online efforts. 

On the first morning, the ten participating charities presented their needs to the group of over fifty participants.  The charities included:

• Canucks Autism Network, whose mission is to build awareness and provide year-round, innovative, high-quality sports, recreational, social and arts programs for individuals and families living with autism.

• Aunt Leah’s Place, which helps prevent children in foster care from becoming homeless and helps mothers in need from losing custody of their children, giving support on their way to self-sufficiency by providing housing, job training, and essential life skills coaching.

• The Lipstick Project, which offers free, professional spa services to men, women. and children across Canada who are facing significant health challenges.

• Do What You Luv. which promotes the importance of creative learning and imagination for youth and community development by organizing creative programs such as art, dance, martial-art and yoga, through partnerships with local school boards.

• Rare Disease Foundation, which works together with researchers, caregivers, volunteers, and families to find solutions for children and families affected by rare and undiagnosed diseases.

• Have Culinary Training Society, which aims to help reduce unemployment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and surrounding communities by providing both occupational and life skills training to people who face various barriers and challenges in life.

• The BC Lung Association, which works to promote lung health and prevent lung diseases.

• UBC Social Enterprise Club, which applies business techniques to real-life situations in order to solve social issues.

• and Fraser Riverkeeper, which is dedicated to the protection and restoration of the Fraser River and its watershed, and determined to ensure the right of all citizens to safely swim, drink, and fish in BC waters.

For the charities, the event provided an opportunity to raise awareness among the tech community and gain technological solutions covering custom analytics, marketing, or user experience.

Don Burks, the Head Instructor at Lighthouse Labs and the organizer of the event said, “Code It Forward accomplished its goal, which was to connect the developer community with the organizations that needed their help. The success of this event proves that there is an appetite for social good which we have only just started to fill.  You can count on us doing more events like this.”

The event was sponsored by Auro, Microsoft, Square, and Lighthouse Labs, with volunteers from each on hand to help leverage their technologies for the effort.

Code It Forward is a social initiative by Lighthouse Labs where developers, designers, and ideators gather together for a weekend to solve tech problems for charities and non-profits.

These organizations are using inadequate, out-of-date systems, and as a result, aren’t helping as many people as they could.

“Many Vancouver charities are run by great people,” the organization explains. “But these people aren’t great coders.”

Lighthouse Labs want to bring together Vancouver’s tech community to give creative innovative technologies that will benefit them for years to come.

Code It Forward takes place July 25-26.

“We want to make a statement to Canada that a hackathon can create genuine social good, and establish a tradition that will inspire hundreds of developers nationwide to participate,” says Lighthouse Labs.