Webserves launches The mPathy Project

For the past decade, WebServes has been empowering nonprofits and businesses to effectively use technology to do good in various populations globally and The mPathy Project is the latest addition to WebServes’ portfolio of technology solutions.

What is The mPathy Project?

Just to give you a bird’s-eye view of this latest initiative, The mPathy Project is essentially an app development contest; a hackathon, if you will. However, unlike the typical hackathon that runs over a weekend or a week, The mPathy Project participants will have 10 weeks to design their apps.

So how is this different from other app development challenges? Well, if it is a WebServes initiative, it has something to do with social good, right? That’s exactly what The mPathy Project is; a challenge based initiative that will give talented app developers an opportunity to showcase their technological prowess and empathy (pun intended!) to build apps that will help out the ones most in need.

The Key Players

The layout of the project is straightforward with the following key members:

• The Hosts: They  are the various nonprofits and non-governmental organizations who constantly work to address the problems in various communities. They recognize a problem and seek to use mobile technology to address it. They offer their support to the project and will in turn benefit by having the option to deploy the apps developed by the participants. 

 

• The Partners: They can be either Sponsors or Patrons. The Sponsors ensure the operational success of the project by providing resources such as tech support, cloud services, venues, logistics, legal and consulting service. The Patrons provide the financial support. 

 

• The Participants: They develop the app designs for the various challenges in the project and will have the opportunity to have their app designs sponsored and developed. The participants have this unique opportunity to gain recognition while working towards social good. 

 

The First Challenge

This summer, the first challenge in The mPathy Project is being hosted by ECPAT-USA whose mission is to stop commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) at the source by advocating for laws to protect children and by educating and raising awareness among youth, first responders, and within the tourism industry.

The participants have the task of developing an app that would be distributed to the companies in the travel and tourism industry to provide them with a quick and easy way to report suspicious activities related to the CSEC.

The Goal of The mPathy Project

With The mPathy Project initiative, WebServes (in conjunction with the hosts, partners and participants) aims to make it a priority to harness the power of mobile based technology to create solutions to the critical problems faced by communities around the world.

We’ll keep you posted on all that goes on with The mPathy Project but in the meantime, head on over to The mPathy Project website and Facebook page for more information on the project, photos and how you can get involved!

~Ramya