Partnership for Social Good at UNC Charlotte
Call for Apps & Games for Social Good

WINNERS

We had a judging tie for 1st place, and therefore split the total of the awards for 1st and 2nd place ($8500) between the top two teams. The winners of our hackathon are:

1st place: Devin Martin and Clinton Jamal Covington - "See My Voice"

1st place: Ikran Hassan and Rachel Chesley - "Charlotte Allies"

3rd place: Henry DeJong - "Financial Simulator"

A followup survey for our attendees is here: www.tinyurl.com/UNCCsocialgood-survey. Please take a few moments to fill out this survey in order to help us improve our future events.

We congratulate our winners and thank everyone for participating. We hope that you all will continue to apply your skills to social good causes.

The Problem

In a just society, a child born into a low-income family will have an equally likely chance of economically advancing as any other child in that community. According to the study released in 2014 by the Equality of Opportunity Project at Harvard*, Charlotte, NC was ranked 50th of 50 metropolitan areas with respect to upward economic mobility. Charlotte area governmental organizations and businesses are working to understand the source of this problem and its potential solutions.

The Challenge

Your challenge is to develop a mobile platform based app or game that addresses the problem facing the Charlotte area.

Submissions should give a voice, or provide a service, to the underprivileged people of Charlotte. Entries should have the potential to qualitatively change the lives of their users for the better. Fully developed apps and games are encouraged, although prototypes will also be accepted.

Winners will be announced at the Summit for Social Good in Charlotte, NC on August 17-18, 2016.

Intellectual Property

For the purposes of the Partnership for Social Good - Social Mobility hackathon, please replace Section 4 of the standard agreement, (http://www.the-hackfest.com/terms-and-conditions) with the following:

An entrant's work and intellectual property will become the property of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte).  UNC Charlotte will grant the entrant a non-exclusive, world-wide, paid up license to use the intellectual property, create derivative works from the intellectual property, and distribute both the initial intellectual property and derivative works with no further compensation due to UNC Charlotte. The entrant acknowledges to the fact that the organizers and UNC Charlotte are not and never shall be in a position to defend this right from infringement or duplication.

Submisison Requirments

1. If you are working as a team, register only one account for your project.

2. To submit, click Add Project from the challenge home page.

After clicking Add Project:

1. In the editing window below the title entry field, include all team member names and email addresses.

2. Upload a PowerPoint or PDF presentation of your submission under Evidence Files.

3. Upload a 10 minute video presentation of your submission to YouTube, and provide a link in the appropriate field.

4. Upload a written summary of your app or game under Evidence Files.

5. Upload instructions for installing your app or game under Evidence Files.

Other evidence files and documentation images can be included at your discretion. Feel free to include any other files you believe will be helpful for the judges evaluating your submission. We also recommend a link to your GitHub repository.

What is Economic Mobility?

Economic mobility is defined by an individual's ability to change his or her economic status. It is typically evaluated using income quintiles or brackets.

Why Charlotte?

The Equality of Opportunity Project [1] specifically examined intergenerational economic mobility [2], which measures a child's ability to move to a higher income quintile regardless of the economic status of his or her parents.

Their results showed Charlotte ranked last out of 50 metropolitan areas in the US with respect to this measure. This means that children born into lower income families in the Charlotte area have the least chance of being able to move to a higher income bracket as compared to all other metropolitan areas studied.

Organizations in the Charlotte area are highly concerned about this result, and have been actively searching for causes and solutions since the publication of this research [3].

Why Data Science?

The Data Science Initiative [4] (DSI) at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is seeking a data driven approach to tackle this issue. A high quality mobile application or game has the potential to both positively influence the lives of its users through educational or other means and enable analysis of data that will better explain the problem and lead to more effective policies.

More Information

Visit our website: http://dsi.uncc.edu/psg

Contact us: socialgood-group@uncc.edu

References

1 – Equality of Opportunity Project: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/

2, *  –  Journal article "Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States": http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/images/mobility_geo.pdf

3 – Charlotte Observer article "Help Us Crack the Code on Economic Mobility": http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article19889658.html

4 – UNCC Data Science Initiative: http://dsi.uncc.edu/