Coders unite for 6 charities at the Gift the Code Hackathon presented by Capital One Canada

From Oct 21-23rd, participants got together for Capital One Canada’s first ever “Gift the Code” Hackathon which took place at Brainstation at King and Spadina. The event consisted of 141 developers, designers and UI/UX artists spending the weekend to help 6 local charities.

Strangers becoming friends

It was amazing to see first-hand what happens when talent, creativity, passion and 40 continuous hours of dedication can do to directly benefit 6 local charities.

The 24 teams developed solutions catered specifically to each individual charity’s technology needs including chat bots, redesigned online donation forms, overhauled website designs and more

I was lucky to witness firsthand the teamwork and camaraderie amongst the individuals who started out as strangers and turned into cohesive teams over the weekend. It was great to see the laughs and the tears of joy and the pride that went into helping charities out directly.

In the spirit of open source, all 24 of the solutions created during the Gift the Code weekend are available on public code repositories to allow for further development, and will be made available at the Capital One Canada Hackathon Github account.

To round out the weekend, all participants were given badges for their charitable efforts.

The 6 charities that benefitted were Second Harvest, Prosper Canada, Blake Boultbee, Holland Bloorview, Toronto Pflag, and Women’s Habitat.

“Participating in Gift the Code has been nothing short of mind blowing. As an organization we are so focused on getting surplus food into the hands of those that need it, and raising the funds to support our mission, that we don’t have the time or the resources to focus on much else, let alone game-changing solutions like those developed this weekend.”
Jennifer Verschraegen, Director of Development, Second Harvest