Tarah Holland and Erin Turner ’15 joined three fellow hackers to develop a community-centered web app that makes it easier to locate food donation sites and encourages contributions.
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Interactive Media students Tarah Holland and Erin Turner ’15 participated in a five-person team that placed second at the 2015 Code for Greensboro Civicon Hackathon and Convention. Pictured (from left) are Holland, Treavia Marshall, Shade Petteway, Turner and Stuti Manandhar. Photos courtesy of Holland.Tarah Holland and Erin Turner ’15, graduate students in Elon’s Interactive Media master’s program, placed second at the inaugural Code for Greensboro Civicon Hackathon and Convention, held Nov. 6-8 in downtown Greensboro. The Elon duo teamed with three fellow female hackers to build a community-centered web app, called Triad’s Serving Hands, that promotes the location and use of local food donation sites.
Using the moniker “Girl Code,” the five-person team was the only all-female group that participated in Civicon15, which drew more than 100 people and nine teams of developers, designers and technologists.
Team “Girl Code” developed a web app called Triad's Serving Hands, a resource that makes it easier for citizens to locate food collection sites.“The purpose of the app is to encourage residents to donate to food pantries and other food drop-off locations in their communities, which will have a significant impact on helping families throughout the region,” said Holland. According to Holland, the app allows users to search for the locations, contact numbers and hours of operation of food drop-off sites.
With assistance from the Code for Greensboro Brigade and Triad Tech Women, the team plans to continue to develop the app, including the addition of push notifications. “Further development would include the implementation of an alert system that would alert users to shortages at food pantries in the region,” said Holland. “For example, they might get an alert when they walk into a local grocery store to encourage them to donate food items to local pantries.”
According to the North Carolina Association of Feeding America Food Banks, several Triad cities are among the most food insecure locations in the nation. In North Carolina, more than 1 in 4 (26.1%) children under age 18 years are food insecure on a regular basis.
The app allows users to search for the locations, contact numbers and hours of operation of food pantries and food drop-off sites.In addition to Holland and Turner, Girl Code team members included Treavia Marshall, Stuti Manandhar and Shade Petteway. All five individuals are members of Triad Tech Women, an educational group for and in support of women who are and want to be in technical fields.
The hackathon was held at the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, an academic collaboration between North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For more information about Civicon15, read the following Code for Greensboro release.
