General
Give Camp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to improve an existing application or create a new custom application for non-profit organizations. The only limitation is that the project should be scoped to be able to be completed in a weekend.
Give Camp was an idea hatched by Chris Koenig, Developer Evangelist for Microsoft, as a way to try to channel the raw energy of the local Dallas developer community towards something that would benefit the local community. Dallas ASP.NET User Group leader Toi Wright organized and ran the first ever Give Camp, calling the event “We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge Weekend” in January of 2008. At that event, we served 18 charities with over 80 developers to great success!
Developers code – it’s what they do. Give Camp was started as a way to try to channel that raw energy and passion for development towards something that would benefit local communities.
The first Philly Give Camp was held in June 2010. It was setup and run by Dani Diaz, the local Microsoft Developer Evangelist. Since then a team from CIGNA's Technology Early Career Development Program (TECDP) has joined forces with Dani to help put on Philly Give Camp 2.
There are several ways that non-developers can help. Before the event begins, there is a LOT of work required to organize everything for the Give Camp weekend. First, volunteers are usually needed to help with things like setting out food, stocking the refrigerator, cleanup, blogging, podcasting and generally just checking up on the teams to see how they’re doing. If you do have some technical skills that are not programming skills, the Give Camp events are usually very much in need of web designers to help make the web sites they’re building look great. Web designers will also often get the extra benefit of working on multiple web site projects during the weekend. DBAs are also often valuable. They too will often get a chance to work with multiple teams and share their skills with multiple non-profits. The bottom line is – if you want to participate in a Give Camp event, we’ll find a way for you to do it!