Realtor.com® recently held Hack-It-Forward, a three-day event in which employees across its seven offices in the U.S. and Canada tackled 26 tech hack projects to benefit 14 employee-nominated nonprofits.
“Realtor.com’s hackathons always bring out the best in innovation and teamwork, and this year, we chose to tap our employees’ experience and expertise to solve challenges for deserving nonprofits. During this year’s hackathon, we helped organizations make real progress in battling homelessness, enabling education for disadvantaged youth, placing pets in homes, supporting veterans, empowering individuals with special needs, and bringing joy to critically ill children,” says Tracey Fellows, acting CEO, realtor.com. “I am inspired by the contributions that our team made to their communities and proud of the truly innovative technology hacks that were developed.”
Nonprofit organizations often operate with limited staff and budgets, leaving few resources to tackle technology and operational challenges. This year, realtor.com decided to donate time and resources to help deserving nonprofits. To ensure that all employees could help give back, realtor.com also teamed with Project Linus to make 1,100 blankets for children in need, and built 200 education kits for Resource Area For Teachers.
Examples of the projects undertaken include:
- An image recognition technology powered by machine learning to automatically determine the condition of bikes being donated to Good Karma Bikes
- A batch photo upload solution to streamline the pet adoption process for The Silicon Valley Pet Project
- A data management system to merge and scrub donor lists for LifeMoves
- A website to automatically request spay and neuter vouchers, saving time and eliminating manual labor for M-SNAP
- Donation platform optimization to streamline the donor process for White Heart Foundation
The full list of nonprofits supported include: The Silicon Valley Pet Project, Friendship Place, M-SNAP, PACE Enterprises, Minds Matter, Pawsitive Friendships, LifeMoves, Covenant House Vancouver, Homestart, Richmond Food Bank, My Brother Rocks the Spectrum, White Heart Foundation, Project Linus and Resource Area For Teachers.
Click here to see the highlights and here to learn more about realtor.com’s Hack-It-Forward event.
