Geeks Without Bounds

Geeks Without Bounds (informally known as GWOB) is a humanitarian organization of technologists, first responders, policymakers, and volunteers that work towards improving access to communication and technology. With a focus on working with communities that have limited infrastructure due to violence, negligence, or catastrophe, they organize hackathons for humanitarian technology, and help prototype projects intended to turn into long-term initiatives through their Accelerator for Humanitarian Projects.

Geeks Without Bounds
FormationOctober 10, 2010 (2010-10-10)
FounderJohnny "Diggz" Higgins, Willow Brugh
Legal statusActive
PurposeEducation, Humanitarian aid
Location
President
Mark Smythe
Executive Director
Elisheva Sterling
Parent organization
Mentor House
AffiliationsRandom Hacks of Kindness
Websitegwob.org

Origins

Geeks Without Bounds was initially announced on August 19, 2010 at Gnomedex 10 in Seattle, Washington, and formally launched on October 10, 2010.[1] by Johnny "Diggz" Higgins, and Willow Brugh as a fiscally sponsored program of The School Factory. In 2012, GWOB became a separate entity, fiscally sponsored by The School Factory.

Organizational structure

Geeks Without Bounds is a non-profit organization, and is primarily volunteer driven. Operational activities are coordinated through a six person board of directors which interact directly with sponsors and organizations around the world. They have organized hackathons, and networks of supportive hackerspaces in a variety of cities since 2010, and have partnered with the Random Hacks of Kindness project.[2]

Support and sponsors

Geeks Without Bounds is fiscally sponsored by Mentor House, an organization based in Tacoma, Washington. GWOB was originally founded as a project of School Factory and then spun out as its own organization under School Factory's fiscal sponsorship until that organization closed its doors in 2017.

Partners include Random Hacks of Kindness, NetHope, Startup World, and SoftLayer.

Individual event sponsors and partners have included Hewlett-Packard, The Next Web, AT&T, and the International Space Apps Challenge.[3]

Organizational sponsors, along with donations from individuals, and grants fund the operational activities of Geeks Without Bounds.

In order to maintain transparency in accounting, income and expenses are provided to the public and published online.[4]

Humanitarian oriented activities

Much of their work has focused on providing humanitarian aid in areas recovering from natural disasters and similar crises, working with STAR-TIDES and Crisis Commons. They have an annual application cycle for projects that want to join the Accelerator for Humanitarian Initiatives.[5]

Hackathons

Geeks Without Bounds has organized various humanitarian hackathons.

Year Title Location
2016 Gender-Based Violence Ranchi, Jharkhand ; India[6]
2013 EveryoneHacks Chicago, Illinois ; United States of America
2013 EveryoneHacks San Francisco, California ; United States of America[7]
2013 Hacking For Disaster 2.0 Birmingham ; England
2012 Hacking For Disaster 2.0 Birmingham ; England[8]
  • Helped with the organization of hacking mapping applications in response to Hurricane Sandy[9]
  • A volunteer group effort to build privacy tools for Mozilla Firefox[10] at RHoKSec in Amsterdam

Oceti Sakowin camp infrastructure

GWOB assisted with setup and maintenance of electrical generation and distribution, as well as local wireless mesh networking and connection to the Lakota-owned Internet point of presence.

Reporting and response to water infrastructure problems

In Tanzania, GWOB helped launch a system by which local communities were able to directly report problems in the water infrastructure to the responsible agencies and receive ETA and other responsive information.

See also

References
  1. Koronakis, Alexandros (2012-05-09). "Geeks for the good of humanity - INTERVIEW;". NewEurope. Archived from the original on 2015-07-11. Retrieved 2015-08-31. The Founder of Geeks Without Bounds, Johnny Diggz, talks about how his organization is using innovative minds to create solutions for disasters
  2. Open Source Hackathon awards, 2010 via Case Organic
  3. "Geeks Without Bounds » Sponsorship, Donations, and Partners". gwob.org. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
  4. Sponsorship and budget Archived 2012-07-27 at the Wayback Machine, GWOB.org
  5. Accelerator applications and mentorship cycle, GWOB.org
  6. "Geeks Without Bounds » Hackathon against Gender Based Violence 2016 : Call for Applications". gwob.org. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  7. "Geeks without Bounds Archives - Page 2 of 5 - Tropo". Tropo. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  8. "shah | Disaster 2.0". www.disaster20.eu. Retrieved 2016-01-07.
  9. Way, Hermione (2012-10-31). "Geeks Without Bounds Organizes Hackathons to help crisis response for Sandy". TNW News. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
  10. Buist, Henk-Jan (2015-06-16). "Humanitair hacken van Firefox OS" [Humanitarian hacking of Firefox OS]. computerworld.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 2015-08-31.

Official website

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