Vodafone’s ‘App Aid’ event helps charities and developers in one hit

We received quite a nice email today from the Vodafone Foundation, quite a nice one indeed. No, they aren’t trying to sell you all a product and no they aren’t trying to make up for the 600,000 lost customers in the last year with more promises. Vodafone Foundation is sponsoring an event which is going to help quite a lot of people.

The App Aid event is held by the Vodafone Foundation and is sponsored by a few big international companies – do Samsung, Google or Facebook ring a bell?

So, what is it?

Vodafone has created App Aid to bring charities and developers together to “code for a cause.” Developers and charities are given the opportunity to come together to make smartphone apps which can potentially further the awareness of charities in Australia.

Demelza Farr, Head of the Vodafone Foundation said:

App Aid is a ground-breaking event that will unite developers committed to helping make a difference, with Australian charities that might not normally be able to afford or access these services.

The winning pair (of developers and a charity) will be given $30,000 and the runner up $10,000. It is suggested that this money could be used towards further app development and bettering the offerings of the company. This truly is a great initiative for the Australian app development community and the charities that get selected.

The competition is running between September 20-22nd. You’ll have 48 hours to get together with your paired charity/dev and create something good! Applications are open from now until August 22nd charities and September 10th for developers.

As Australia is fast becoming an app nation; on average, Australians will have 25 downloaded apps on their smartphones, we believe this technology offers charities a new world of possibilities to engage with their communities in a relevant, innovative and meaningful way.

Our goal with App Aid is to spur mobile innovation to help solve some of the challenges faced by charities and their communities. We are excited to create this melting pot which brings together entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs, to explore this new technology and its potential.

And did I make it in?

Charities:
Vodafone will choose 7 of the charities from the online form and the remaining 3 via a Facebook campaign. The winners will be announced on Friday the 14th of September.

Developers:
Vodafone Foundation will choose 40 devs on September 17th and assort them into groups for their corresponding charities.

How will your app be chosen?

App Aid will have a panel that will just the app prototypes based on a set of criteria (as taken from the press release):

• The app adds value to the charity and community it supports
• The app is a highly engaging and innovative app that encourages regular use by its users – demonstrating features that make people want to keep coming back
• The app is not replicated anywhere in the current smartphone app environment
• The app has a clever user interface design that takes mobile device features into account, such as shaking, waving, gestures, voice activation etc.

If you’re a charity in need or an app developer looking to show off your skills and help out the community then this is for you. If you’re interested in the competition we’d definitely suggest checking out more on the official website, it really does seem to be a great cause.

Oh, and did we say that Vodafone will be helping with the marketing for the new apps? Yeah, well, they are!