CTC recently helped sponsor the 2008 Flourish Open Source Software Conference, held at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

During the 2008 Flourish Conference, interested attendees were given the opportunity to participate in the first ever "Code for a Cause" Hack-a-thon. This involved bringing together interested volunteer web and application developers at the conference with local nonprofit groups that needed simple websites or web apps. The event, sponsored by the Chicago Technology Cooperative, was a success, with approximately 2 dozen active participants and another 50-60 observers who visited the Hack-a-thon to learn more about the use of open source software in the nonprofit/voluntary sector.

So what happens when you combine a couple dozen geeks and some worthy charities? Although things got a little chaotic, we produced some very impressive work, ate a ton of pizza, and everyone had a lot of fun!

The flagship project, developed after consultation with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), was an online mapping mashup application showing the locations of homeless shelters throughout Chicago. The mashup allows users - most likely social workers and case workers - to find specific shelters based on a variety of geographical and other criteria. Users can search by address, or by social services offered. CCH will hopefully be able to leverage this functional prototype for additional funding so that this resource can be implemented citywide.

You can view this project at http://homeless.codeforacause.org