York Butter Factory to host hackathon to support families struggling with cancer

Charity Redkite and Melbourne co-working space York Butter Factory have combined forces to host a hackathon designed to support the not-for-profit to develop a more digitally adept way of engaging families with young people battling cancer.

Developers, entrepreneurs and designers will gather to build web or mobile apps to drive community engagement next weekend.

There is over $10,000 worth of cash prizes available.

York Butter Factory community manager Jason Lim told StartupSmart they were keen to facilitate the charity accessing the start-up community and had worked closely with developers to create the best model.

“We expect the strong ideas may turn into an acquisition or ongoing contract to develop the app further,” Lim says.

“Developers are obviously a very talented group and any form of exploitation is a bad thing. We worked with Redkite really carefully to ensure it was a good option for the participants.”

The hackathon is part of a wider awareness campaign to be launched later in 2014 by the 30-year-old charity, which supports children and young people who are battling cancer and their families.

Redkite hackathon coordinator Martine Pelly told StartupSmart they’re hoping the hackathon will inspire new ideas for how to engage a new generation.

“We’ve been around for years but the awareness of Redkite is quite low so we’re not reaching all the families we could be helping,” she says. “We thought the hackathon could be a great way to create a couple of concepts that will expand our awareness of digital and let Australia know we exist.”

The terms and conditions give Redkite the right to first negotiation. Participants will retain ownership of everything they develop over the weekend.