GiveCamp Memphis is a weekend-long event where local developers and designers get together to build software for non-profit organizations. Give Camp 2017 was held on February 17th, 18th, and 19th at The Fedex Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis. This was a new location for the event, now on its seventh year , thanks to the recently established partnership between the University of Memphis and the Memphis Technology Foundation.
This was my third year volunteering and I’m convinced it’s one of the coolest, albeit underrated, events in Memphis. Several non-profit’s, including Overton Park Conservancy, Cooper Young Garden Club, Spay Memphis, and Cancer Card Xchange applied for help and saw amazing results in the form of software developed for them by some of the best software developers and designers in the city. Software developers, systems administrators, designers and project managers are on site and ready to help even if it means switching roles to get the job done.
The meals were great and there was plenty of junk food to keep everyone going. Several standup sessions were held during the event to keep track of everyone’s progress and give teams an opportunity to ask for help if they were stuck. I have a lot of experience with WordPress so I was pretty excited to be tapped on the shoulder more than a few times to help with other teams’ projects. At 2pm on Sunday, a code freeze was put in effect and the remaining time was used for any training needed to ensure the users knew their way around their product.
As always, all of the non-profit/charity reps left satisfied with their final product and all of the volunteers had a great time helping.
Special thanks to all of the volunteers, non-profits, and sponsors for making GiveCamp Memphis possible.
GiveCamp 2017 Sponsors
