a guest blog post by Volkan Özçelik https://geekli.st/volkan - technical lead, Cisco, Samurai of the Javascript

“Well, you’re obviously being totally naïve of course, said the girl”, “When you’ve been in marketing as long as I have, you’ll know that before any new product can be developed it has to be properly researched. We’ve got to find out what people want from fire, how they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them.” 

“Stick it up your nose,” he said.

“Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know,” insisted the girl, “Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?” 

“And the wheel,” said the Captain, “What about this wheel thingy? It sounds a terribly interesting project.” 

— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 32

…

Everyone discourages us from reinventing the wheel.

And it’s not just the people around: All the software architecture books we read are against reinvention, too.

The reasoning is simple:

The problem you are trying to solve has already been solved by others. Instead of doing it yourself, you should learn from others’ sufferings because it’s the most effective way to occupy your time.

That’s the conventional wisdom. And conventional wisdom, like common sense, is an oxymoron.

Can you see the circular problem with the line of thought that deems reinventing a futile effort? — If everyone denies to solve any problem unless an existing solution exists, then there won’t be any solutions to begin with.

Nothing new will ever get written under such an approach;

And nothing existing will ever be polished, either.

To break the cliché even further you might be surprised that the wheel has been the most re-invented tool ever.

Reinvent to Make It Better

Let’s talk about software:

Any software that is older than a couple of years will be full of workarounds for features that fall short, and patches that just don’t fit.

Have you just inherited a ten-year-old legacy code from a frustrated developer? Well… I feel for you buddy. — You have every right to wonder how an earth so much crap can cripple its way into a codebase.

Seriously though, if you’ve ever wondered why so much code is crap; the reason is simple:

There is crap because we compromise — we have to:

It’s often considered quicker and faster to live with the current flaws. And we have deadlines to meet, you know.

The bottom line is:

There is always something out there that can be made better.

This is not only true for software, but also true for anything you can imagine.

Anything can be made better, faster, stronger; our work is never over (Daft Punk, anyone?).

Reinvent to Transform

Mapping, Reduction, Filtering, and Transformation: Anything you imagine will fall into one of these categories.

(that means life, as we know it, is purely functional; and that’s the point of another article).

You can express any concept as a mapping, filtering, or transformation. Invention is one of these concepts:

Invention is transformation:

You take a bunch of crazy $#!% and transform them into even crazier $#!%.

I don’t know you, and I wholeheartedly believe that transformation is not a waste of time.

We need to be more creative, and less dull. That’s the only way to transform.

…

You know what? Nothing is a simple as it seems. Nothing fits right for the first time:

The hard truth is that we carve out the edges of square pegs to fit them into round holes, and call this “code re-use”.

Since nothing is simple, it logically follows that there are no dumb questions either.

Now, to be clear; I am also against the “not invented here syndrome”. Yet, I see, in our community, an increased aptitude to blindly use tools without questioning their internals. This is one of the many adverse-effects of the “don’t reinvent the wheel” culture.

It’s ok to be outrageous. It’s the acts of insanity that often lead the simplest of solutions. Try new things and have fun!

Every now and then step outside your comfort zone. Do something different. By doing things differently you will start to see things differently.

What I see in the majority of the developer ecosystem is quite the opposite:

We like to stick with certain tools/patterns/libraries. — It is not because we support code re-use; per contra, it is because we are too lazy to leave our comfort zones.

Now that is dull.

And dull is the polar opposite of creative.

It is not something that you would aspire to be.

…

Reinventing the wheel gives you the insight about the wheel.

If you don’t know a concept well enough to reinvent it; how can you understand it enough to build something more complicated on top of it?! 

You know what? Occasionally you will come up with a better wheel, too.

That’s not the purpose, though.

The purpose is to go through a transformation.

The world needs its crazy-makers, and the world needs lots of them.

Reinvent to Learn

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

Those were Richard Feynman’s last words on his blackboard at the time of his death.

Why do children break their toys? Because the best way to learn about something is to tear it into pieces and then bring those pieces together.

Understanding is what makes you grow. Without an understanding of your environment, you won’t have the power. And to survive in any ecosystem, knowing the system helps a lot.

…

I have a huge pile of “stuff” (pieces of code, images, assets, snippets, documents) that are diverse, and interesting to me. And I tinker to figure out ways to make those things fit together.

I am sure, there are a better solutions at github, or npm that address what that I am trying to achieve.

That’s not the thing.

The thing is: Sustaining a habit to combine and mentally fit seemingly-unrelated pieces together turns out be extremely helpful. It is especially useful when you find yourself in a situation where you have to come up with a solution to a really hard problem ASAP.

The best way to learn how to use tools is to learn to be a tool-maker.

I don’t also believe that you need to create something that others would use. Don’t limit yourself to others’ requirements because no matter what you come up with you will learn a lot:

You will gain confidence in a given area of expertise. That expertise will help you come up with actual productive work better, and faster than anyone else.

Don’t fear being a crazy maker.

Read the Source, Luke

Just one thing though:

Don’t get your hands dirty all of a sudden, thinking that nobody has solved a similar problem before you. Before starting anything, examine what others have done:

While reinventing your wheel yo will see the size of the giants on whose shoulders you are standing.

Also don’t shy away from some of those people. When you ask smart questions they are, indeed, quite receptive and welcoming.

 Reinvent to Adapt

Let’s talk about genetics:

Without variation, a population cannot evolve in response to changing environmental variables. As a result, it may face an increased risk of extinction.

That’s what the theory of evolution tells us.

That is true for anything: economics, politics, finance, programming, open source, ideas…

Without variety, you cannot be fruitful, let alone multiply.

As a corollary to that: Without reinvention, diversity is impossible.

So if you plan to create yet another JavaScript charting library, you are actually doing good to the community.

Having different things that try to solve a problem is not bad, it is good, actually it is really damn good.

The flawed mentality of “never reinventing the wheel”, might lead to stagnation, and can hinder the evolution of better outcomes.

Beware of the Frankenware

Frankeware is any software product that consists of a mashup of various reusable code pieces. — The problem is, those reusable pieces do not quite fit into the product; and they also do not play well with each other. — The result is a working, yet buggy and unstable code base that can blow up with even the simplest feature modification.

If you are old enough to remember the times when DHTML was the coolest new thing, and Netscape Navigator 4 was a decent browser, you know exactly what I mean.

One problem with reusing the wheel is the same as with a lot of things: hidden assumptions.

The person who invented the wheel designed it with her preconceived notions, and her sets of requirements. You should find yourself lucky if any of these are documented at all.

Any time you attempt to reuse the wheel, it is quite possible that one or more of these assumptions won’t hold.

Reusing the wheel can be inefficient at best, and just plain wrong at worst.

I am not saying to reinvent all the things — that would be counter-productive.

It’s just that you should analyze the reusable pieces that you plan to use very well:

Don’t just read the public documents; dive into developer communities, read the source code, check the open bugs and issues, see what common pitfalls they have avoided along their way…

Don’t buy into anything because it is the coolest newest kid on the block.

Know what you are doing, and be wise in your decisions.

Reinvent and Be Responsible

If your job title is not ”Chief Executive Crazy-Maker” then you are expected to get things done, as soon as possible, as cost-effective as possible, with the best quality as possible.

That goes without saying, and I’ll say anyway.

I am by no means advocating towards inefficient use of company time.

Unless you have a solid reason that your reinvention is necessary (because it will be simpler, easier to integrate, more lightweight, easy-to-maintain, you name it…), then suck your ego up, and use a battle-tested solution that everyone trusts.

And if you do want to come up with your solution anyway, then do it in your personal time. — That’s what nightlife is for, Neo!

Reinvent for a Competitive Edge

Assume you are one of the rare individuals wanting to create something that has never been done before. The type who wants to disrupt the status quo, you know. — If you are aware of the alternatives, and you are purposefully reinventing, it is actually an advantage.

Here’s how Joel Spolsky states that:

For example, if you’re writing a cool 3D shoot-em-up game (like Quake, around the same time period) and your key number one differentiator is to have the coolest 3D graphics, you do not use whatever 3D library you can find. — You write your own because it’s fundamental to what you do.

This is far more than a pedagogical benefit:

Reinventing the wheel actually takes you ahead of the competition because you can fine-tune your wheel exactly to your needs. Thus, you will opt in to differentiate, and perform better, possibly compromising clarity and reusability.

That’s a difficult tradeoff that you have to make.

 Beware of The Cost of Reinvention

This is not to discourage you. I just want to lay out the facts as straight as I can:

During the course of your reinvention, you will start with a simple and obvious solution to your problem.

That simple and obvious solution will, 99% of the time, be inadequate:

You will have to reiterate your solution over and over again. And that’s a good thing.

Sometimes you will think that you have taken a reasonable path, only to find that things are getting more and more difficult as you try to improve your solution.

Then you will discover a different path that looks promising. Then you erase and rewind to the beginning.

Your implementation will “probably” stink, and people will discourage you a lot.

That’s the innovator’s dilemma, and sometimes it is right to listen to others, and then continue doing what you believe to be the right thing.

Another thing:

Don’t try to reinvent everything at once. — It will put you into a paralysis of analysis mode and you will end up gaining nothing.

Choose Something that Adds Value to You

“I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing… why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer… It’s the question that drives us, Neo. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question.” — The Matrix (1999)

As long as reinventing is your intention, and it does not stem from your lack of knowledge of other options, it’s perfectly fine to do so. — Having said that, I am pretty much sure I can live without programming another linked list in my lifetime.

So the question is not whether to reinvent.

The question is:

“Is the opportunity cost of the time you spend reinventing worth your efforts?”

Or, in other words:

“Is there a more productive way to occupy your time?”

Answering this question — and other similar questions — is personal, and has never been easy, and it has to be made.

That answer will change you in an irreversible way.

Conclusion

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up”  – Pablo Picasso

My friends consider me as a hacker, and — as such — I have been different throughout my entire life.

I’ve been saying for the longest time, that reinventing isn’t necessarily a waste:

At the very least, it helps you to gain more knowledge to choose the right tool for the job; and at a more existential perspective, it transforms you into a totally different being.

And very few believed me.

With this article I just wanted to reach out to those who felt the same way somewhere along their journeys.

My final two cents are:

Screw the naysayers, and do reinvent things.

With one caveat though:

Don’t think you are a smart ass who does not need to learn from the existing wheels and wheel makers; as that approach would be selfish, and galactically stupid.

We are geeks for a reason:

We love to tinker; we love to solve problems.

And who cares if the problem has already been solved a bazillion times. — If you haven’t solved it, then it is yours to solve.

The beauty is in the path you walk, not the destination.

Instead of seeing a problem and solving it; it is much better to see a solution and find what the problem with it is.

Assuming there is no true answer, and constantly asking questions is better than sticking to a presumed answer.

Some will think that you are not getting results; however, not getting results is different than resulting in nothing.

You are exclusively invited to test our new Hackathon App in Beta on Geeklist!

Yes! Launch and host your hackathons in 2014 on Geeklist's killer hackathon app! Inside the beta version you can:

Gather attendees

Add sponsors

Add Judges

Add mentors

Add ideas

Turn ideas into projects

Build teams and unite developers, designers, product managers and entrepreneurs

Share the event with friends on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

Give teams ^5's (high fives) for the ideas and projects they launch

Invite developers from around the world to participate

Connect with your Eventbrite page using iframes

With many more features on the way (email suggestions to [email protected])

What's more, it's completely integrated with the Geeklist activity feed and your Geeklist Profile! Now your projects and ideas become a part of your profile on Geeklist automagically, giving you credit for all of the extra-curricular fun and passion you expend every time you invest energy into a hackathon.

We recently ran two live beta tests of the app, before release. One for the Geeklist #hack4good at the Web Summit and the other to launch up a global effort to help Typhoon Haiyan and the Philippines relief efforts. You can see the results here:

Not holding your own hackathon? Get involved in the first ever year-long hackathon event to help stop HIV/AIDS globally! Join the Immunity Project and Geeklist on the hackathon app and be a part of history!

BTW, Did you know we have Geeklist Pubic and Private repositories as a free service with your Geeklist account? Test them out and merge over your repos with no limits to the number of users.

We have over 2,000 new git repository users and it's humming. Expect a complete integration with Geeklist. These repositories are FREE FOR PRIVATE AND PUBLIC to all Geeklist users! Have fun and #hack4good in 2014!

This is a guest blog post for Geeklist by Charlie Key, CEO of Modulus

One of the major hiccups for most new projects is getting something out there. There is bootstrapping to configure, databases to start up, and various network concerns such as hosting. Not only that, but you have to get all these pieces working smoothly together. These are the headaches Meteor tries to help solve.

What is it?

So Meteor is a framework that works pretty similar to Ruby on Rails. It bootstraps a lot of work required for a real-time application, from the database connection all the way up to the client-side websockets. Of course this makes it extremely popular, especially for projects that want to get up and running quickly.

Telescope is a pretty cool social news app like Reddit that updates as things are added. A great use of Meteor's real-time features. Of course you can build more traditional websites, like the one for the Adventurize service. However, the real-time features come in handy in a lot of cases, especially if you need video streams like CodersTV. All of these are built with Meteor and are awesome examples of things you can build.

Production-Grade Meteor

Meteor is obviously very popular and it is technically a Node.js application when said and done, so it is obvious that  it should support production level applications. However, Meteor sets up their applications slightly differently than your average Node.js application, there are a few things that need to be considered before throwing Meteor applications across the web all willy-nilly.

The first issue that is quite common is performance. It is true that performance is only as good as the machine you run things on, but with any monolithic solution Meteor can be quite a resource hog. This would not be too much of an issue, but it seems Meteor can be quite difficult to horizontally scale due to its current mechanism to update other instances. I hear on the grape vine that these will be addressed in the 1.0 release though.

The largest hurdle standing in the way is Meteor's smart packages. Not necessarily the smart packages themselves, but the way Meteor handles them as dependencies. Meteor uses its own definition format for defining dependencies and metadata instead of a package.json file. This means that any standard way of setting up and running Node.js applications will not work. Even the built in bundling will not convert the application into something you can run using just Node.js. This makes it extremely difficult to run Meteor applications on most PaaS providers, and It is pretty safe to say if you are using Meteor to make development faster you will want to use a PaaS to handle servers for you.

Enter Demeteorizer

The solution comes in the form of a command line tool called demeteorizer. Utilizing some built in Meteor operations and a little brute force, it takes a Meteor application and converts it to a more standard Node.js application, package.json file and all. This means that any Meteor application can be converted and run on any Node.js hosting provider.

This is a guest blog post provided by Gene Murphy, CMO at Copper.io - 

Gene Murphy is the CMO at Copper.io a full stack ops and monitoring tool set in one place for developers and when he's not marketing by metrics he can be found hanging out at hackathon's, accelerators or anywhere there's an awesome startup story to hear! A previous alumni of the accelerator Launchpad and a mentor at Startup Bootcamp Gene is most definitely a Startup Geek. Find Gene here: https://geekli.st/genemurphy

The day before the Dublin Web Summit, and all was not quiet as the clickety clack of keyboards from entrants at today’s Geeklist #Hack4Good Hackathon is very much in full swing at the Digital Exchange, Dublin.

With an estimated 150+ attendees throughout the day, entrants come from backgrounds including engineering design and product with today’s projects geared at providing solutions to solve humanitarian, disaster relief, environmental and hunger.

Teams from around the world arrived at 8am for a rapid fire briefing,  project selection and of course, obligatory croissants and coffee. Challenges today have been submitted by a series of NGO’s including Inspire Ireland, GOAL, Oxfam, Concern Worldwide, Centrepoint, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Jungle Bird and Young Enterprise.

We’re on site chatting with teams through the day and we’ll keep you updated with all the news from teams as well as the judges final announcement this evening just before the Copper.io Hackathon After Party!

*The Winner of #Hack4Good at the Dublin Web Summit is…*

In third place is Team Crop, in second  No Tag No Tree and the winner is Drive by Donations… Well done everyone!

And the prize for this years #Hack4Good Hackathon is ! Now it’s time for the after party they we’re happy to be sponsoring this evening as there is no doubt that these awesome hackers deserve some rest and relaxation time!

*UPDATE*

And last up before the final judging is Tracko who have worked today on producing an app to help charity’s measure the direct effects of people participating in their events.

*UPDATE*

Now it’s an app to help track patient accounts.

*UPDATE*

Team OGI (Oxfam global Impact) worked through today on the challenge set down by Oxfam to visualise the impact of their work around the world.

*UPDATE*

Jungle Bird are a charity focused on reducing deforestation or in their own words, they are all about reforestation! The team are building an app to reduce the paper system currently used by loggers which the team says is open to large scale abuse by illegal logging activities.

The team have worked to create an app to create a digital track and trace system to reduce the volume of illegal logged wood.

*UPDATE*

Oxfam Store Front has been designed to help the charity redevelop their mobile shopping experience, provide engaging content about the people they are helping through purchases made on their site, enable direct gifting and transfer the fun experience of rummaging in a charity shop to their online ecommerce platform.

*UPDATE*

Drive by Donations have created a mobile app to alert users as they walk by a charity building to the opportunity to donate direct from their mobile phone.

*UPDATE*

Team Wishable are being pitched by Alan Barry today’s youngest participant. Read their interview below in the feed.

*UPDATE*

Next up is the to Get Ready To Help team who simply ask for you to, ‘give us your permission to publish in your Twitter and we will use it ONLY to communicate the world when a Crisis is happening.’

They say that this way way they can use the power of the masses to inform more people about an ongoing crisis.’

*UPDATE*

Delivering a solution for the charity Concern this team has worked on a solution to track interactions with individuals in conflict zones which right now is tracked with paper and pen and expensive data collection systems.

The team worked to create a tablet based solution to allow field staff from Concern, to track and curate survey data via tablet devices which later is synced once they get back to online coverage to help capture data electronically. This means faster actionable data by their teams.

*UPDATE*

Built for simplicity (but also for scale) according to the team at Crop this app connects farmers with vendors to get the best prices possible and create sustainable farming income.

*UPDATE*

The guys from Impact Tracker are now on stage pitching their app aimed at connecting young people who lack employment with the right job opportunities.

*UPDATE*

Next up on stage is Hercules from team Though4Food. The team have addressed the issue of wastage in food with the app they produced today.

The solution is provided via a mobile app which allows people with food that is about to expire to make charitable groups aware that this food is available for collection and distribution by the charity. In doing this food otherwise usable food is not wasted and gets to people that really need it.

*UPDATE*

Pitching has just started at #Hack4Good with Team Lone Ranger being the first to take the stage with their nutritional calculator app.

The app is aimed at getting house holds to submit their nutritional intake on a daily basis which is cross referenced with the standard daily intake according to national records.

This means that the charity GOAL can watch out for hotspots of nutrient low hot spots in turn this allows them to target aid packages more efficiently with the particular nutrients that are missing from diets of the app user.

*UPDATE*

Adam O’Brien, Patrick Corrigan and Bill Patterson (Hackathon Philidephia Winner with NoteSketch) were the given the challenge submitted by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Their app is aimed at helping patients in remote locations around the world input their own medical needs into an app which can be pre-configured by a doctor, according to the patients illness, and reviewed in an ongoing pattern while side stepping regions of the world with poor access to medical health care infrastructure.

The teams biggest takeaway from today was that they learned a huge amount about development environments and are really looking forward to the next event!

*UPDATE*

Team Wishable have taken to solving two challenges with one smartly thought out piece of mobile tech.

Headed up by some well known faces in the Irish Tech scene including Adam Barry (our youngest entrant today!), Emily Castles, Aaron Craig and Brian Kenny the team at Wishable started out with the goal of making online donations to children a far more straightforward process via mobile.

However, as this team is an efficient bunch, they decided, after a quick chat with the people at Oxfam, to structure their app to be able to be used in the future by the charity to streamline their mobile donations.

The team, say their biggest challenge so far has been too many ideas and not enough time!

*UPDATE*

We’re here with David Curran and Andrew Rockhave teamed up to help Jungle Bird with their mission to stop deforestation.

Challenge – Jungle bird goal is to reduce illegal logging and create awareness of this major global issue.

Solution – The guys are creating a mobile app to help consumers find the most efficient way to use wood in their next building project with the benefit being a big reduction in wood waste while also raising awareness of the charity through in app branding.

Biggest challenge? David Curran says that the guys are suffering from a case of eye strain but are soldiering through with the help of tea, coffee and good intentions. Check back later to see how they progress in tonight’s judging sessions.

You can find out more about Jungle Bird here

*UPDATE*

Dublin’s very own Lord Mayor has popped into see how the teams are taking to their challenges today with some words of encouragement!

When planning a hackathon, you have a lot of decisions to make. Food, venue, date, format, tools, schedule. After you’ve made all of your selections, you have an event roughly put together, and follow up with polish and action. It’s the choices you make that define the outcome. At Geeklist we take context and quality for developers with the utmost respect.

For our new series of hackathons, we didn’t want participants to try to find a problem (that may or may not actually exist), build a business model around it, and leave with a prototype, pitch, and prize for spending their time on something they could have built anywhere. In my mind, that’s like cramming for a test you’ve aced a few times already, for a class you took last year.

When planning our Geeklist #hack4good we chose a different path. There are problems that already exist. Problems that affect the lives of people that don’t have the latest smartphone, people that aren’t in traffic, people that don’t have scheduling conflicts or LinkedIn profiles, dinner plans, or even a plan for dinner tonight, or tomorrow. There are problems that already scale, because of earthquakes, flooding, fires and famine. There are verticals as large as 99% of the population. We chose to make this a hackathon for good above all else.

We certainly aren’t the first to encourage hackers to spend their extra cycles on problems that plague society, but we did have the opportunity to make it the theme for Geeklist’s first big event (and future events), and by doing so we hope to inspire more organizers and sponsors to consider what a hackathon can give back, and chose to do good. One thought lingered in our minds: “If so few hackathons take this route, is doing the right thing really the right thing?” You can’t predict the outcome of a hackathon; your involvement shouldn’t be much more than setting the stage.

We built it, and they came.

We set modest goals, knowing that in a first attempt, we’d be lucky to fill the field with teams. Further, we didn’t want to attract people to the event for the wrong reasons, so our signup form didn’t list prizes or awards. We wanted participants that understood what we were hoping to accomplish and could drive each other by betting against the status quo, and choosing at attract hackers for a different purpose. There is definitely an audience here. We were humbled by the response, dedication, support, and drive of the participants. 

See the standout projects in this blog post.

Thanks to the support of our sponsors, Pivotal Labs, Walmart Labs, Moovweb, Startup Monthly, New Relic, Smart Bear, Appsifyme,  we were able to make sure that our participants had an unmatched level of comfort and an inspirational hacking environment, plenty of privacy, resources, nourishment, and access to experts and support teams. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to give awards and prizes that included donations to nonprofits that our teams built projects for. In total, Geeklist and it’s sponsors exceeded $52,000 in financial and in kind awards and our teams presented 10 brilliant and varied solutions to problems that actually exist today.

Look for our next awesome hackathon coming soon!

Ed Palumbo

Geeklist

Hey! Don't miss our partners event this July 19th! It's going to be great and the winners of the Geeklist hackathon are presenting!

Join Startup Socials Friday, July 19th for the biggest Startup Showcase of the year. Here is why you cannot afford to miss it: World-class networking: connect with 1000+ of Silicon Valley’s sharpest minds and meet our international guests from France, Israel, Denmark, Sweden, Russia and more Brand NEW showcase: check out the hottest products and demos from 20+ new startups. We carefully screen presenting startups for quality, potential to succeed, and value to our attending guests

Words don't describe what a great project, built in 48 sleepless and frantic hours, can do to change the world. At Geeklist we're just getting started with our #hack4good series, but I think the results of our first one speak for themselves. Wow. They work to solve serious problems like disaster communication, autism learning, hunger, earthquake emergency solutions, and even a non-profit to help non-profits in tech!

Congrats to the incredible women and men who participated! You all rock and deserve the utmost respect for your passion, ingenuity and hard work. ^5! (And a very special ^5 to Ed, Ishan, Yuri and Avani for your dedication, organization and hard work putting it all together! Thank you!)

Geeklist #Hack4Good Grand Prize Winner

Good Neighbor by Jonathan Wu, Jason Liu, Luca Zuccarini, Howard Guan

Concept: “Good Neighbor allows communities in small neighborhoods to post requests for needs, services, giveaways, and notifications to make everyone aware of what's going on in the area they live in and encourages neighbors to help each other out.  Good Neighbor was also designed to be used on a large scale to streamline the process of emergency relief efforts of organizations such as The American Red cross, to make their support to communities in need, faster and more efficient.” - Jason Liu

Here’s their achievement - give them a grand ol’ ^5! https://geekli.st/Lu/i-helped-building-good-neighbor-gklst-hack4good

  In current form the team has incorporated Google Maps API, jQuery Mobile, Node.js, Socket.io, and MongoDB. Now they plan to put Good Neighbor on a server at SoftLayer to work further, find pain points, and refine the UI/UX.

Geeklist #Hack4Good San Francisco Runner Up

Just Sayin’ - Colors by Nea Bisek, Dogan Berktas, Irmak Berktas, Shinyoung Park

Concept: “An educational game app with voice control to assist early language learners and children with autism learn to speak. Colors version features various objects that animate after the user says their color.” - Nea Bisek

There’s a card for this too: ^5 https://geekli.st/neabisek/i-helped-build-just-sayin-colors-gklst-hack4good

Technology: Open Ears, Coco, C++

Next Steps: Future versions can build speech sentence structure.

Geeklist #Hack4Good Online Runner Up

USGS Mobile (Online) by: Atiim Wiley, Ēriks Remess, Manny Kary

Concept: “Now you can report and look up tremors from your phone! It’s the popular ‘Did you feel it?’ earthquake web site from USGS turned into a smartphone friendly mobile website.” - Atiim Wiley.

Here’s their card https://geekli.st/atiimwiley/i-helped-create-a-mobile-version-of-usgss-earthquake-page-gklst-hack4good

Technology used: Moovweb, Node.js, the usual suspects...

But also

TechSoupToGo by Stephen Nguyen

Concept: “Helping a non-profit that helps non-profits” (how meta), Stephen created a mobile version of this non-profit website that lists software discounted specifically for nonprofits.

Geeklist Card: https://geekli.st/Stephenitis/im-building-techsoup-to-go-with-moovweb

Technology used: Moovweb

Geeklist #Hack4Good Honorable Mention

feed&gain by Sidney Zhang, Nathaniel Wroblewski, Brandy Dettmer, Rob McQueen, Jing Jian

Concept: "Crowdsourced solutions to end hunger. Basically giving the ability for people with food to give to let nearby people know it’s available for pickup. Then users can go, pick up the food and deliver it to homeless or hungry." (We really love this!)

^5 to end hunger one delivery at a time! - https://geekli.st/sidazhang/i-helped-build-feedgain-to-end-hunger-at-gklst-hack4good

Technology: Twilio, FB Authentication, Geo Location, Google Map Integration, Django App, jQuery Mobile

Next Steps: Rebuilding the product in rails and launching native app in iOS. On the user acquisition side, we have not put too much thoughts into it but for us, step 1 is to contact the startups that we know and start with their catered lunch/dinner.