Hackers from last weekend’s Christian-oriented Code for the Kingdom in Dallas were called from as far as Toronto and Washington state.
The assembled group of 100 programmers spent the weekend working on 22 projects, such as developing apps to better connect adults and kids with the Bible. For Chris Armas, who has organized the Code for the Kingdom’s hackathons since the first one in San Francisco in 2013, two projects in particular stood out as examples of ways for Christians to do good in the community.
The first one is a digital marketing campaign called #ihaveaname, which uses a Twitter-driven app to filter hashtags, and auto-reply and virally disrupt posts that advertise human trafficking. “#ihaveaname activates the crowd to send so much traffic to the trafficker’s point of contact, that such point of contact becomes ineffective for the trafficker to do business,” Armas says.
The “True Food” project aims to use models like Uber and Plated to combat so-called food deserts, neighborhoods in which there are no grocery stores and finding fresh food is difficult. “This for-profit grocery delivery service will source drivers and customers from food desert zip codes and partner with suppliers such as grocery stores, wholesalers, and farmers markets to offer discounted pricing in return for access to these untapped marketplaces,” Armas explains.
Here are some of the other hackathon projects:
Kingdom Promise Land App: An app to encourage people to learn the Bible audibly using Bible memory verses.
Walk Through the Bible: An app, powered by the Digital Bible API, that allows you to “walk the Bible.” The app keeps track of how far you walked while listening to the Bible.
MentorMe: This project looked at the development of a mentoring app that connects different generations of Christians.
Cup of Water: An app to connect people with Christian ministries, volunteers, and stories.
Know the Book: An app to help kids learn the Bible using memorization and gamification.
Multiply Me: Multiplied crowdfunding for nonprofits.
Yada: An app to build and connect church communities.
Give Life: A concept to create awareness and simplify the process to become an organ donor.
Mentor Match: An app to quickly connect mentors and mentees by partnering organizations that offer mentoring services.
GodSync: A digital platform to synchronize the body of Christ.
Heart Speak: An app that empowers oral cultures to translate scripture into their heart language, or the underlying meaning or implicit messages in scripture.
