The Philippine Web Designers Organization launches Caritakathon

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Web Designers Organization (PWDO) launches its second “Caritakathon”, a pro-bono website building hackathon for non-profit organizations and charities, to be held on April 26-27 in Makati.

“Caritakathon”, which debuted in 2013, encourages teams of designers, developers, and project managers to design and build websites for eligible charitable and non-profit organizations in under 48 hours.

The event name is a portmanteau of “caritas” (Latin word for charity) and “hackathon” (an event where developers build software following a theme and a limited time frame).

The goal of “Caritakathon” is for web designers and developers to exercise skills in fulfilling clients’ needs and creating functional, aesthetic, accessible websites, while the same time helping out charities and non-profits who may not be able to afford such services.

Each team will be randomly assigned a charity at the start of the hackathon Day One, and will be given time to consult with a representative from that charity. At the end of Day Two, teams will present their websites to the charity representatives and a panel of judges.

“We were primarily inspired by FullCodePress.com, an international website building competition that also benefited charities,” says Mae Paulino, one of the founders of PWDO.

“In the Philippines, hackathons for mobile applications and start-ups are becoming more ubiquitous, but we wanted to do something that gave back to the community,” adds Sophia Lucero, another founder of the organization.

Prizes will be awarded to the team and charity whose website has the best execution of the client brief and fulfillment of the judges’ criteria.

A pre-event boot camp where industry experts will share tips and experiences on client interaction, user experience, and designing for a cause will be held on April 23 and 24.

Interested teams may register at the Caritakathon website: https://www.pwdo.org/hackathon/

“Caritakathon” is organized by the Philippine Web Designers Organization, with major support from Microsoft and Muni.com.ph, and sponsorship from Freelancer.ph, iVolunteer.com.ph, Campaign Monitor, Balsamiq, PortfolioMNL, co.lab xchange, Action Stack.org, Inquirer.net.

For any inquiries, please contact PWDO at [email protected]. Event updates will be posted at https://www.facebook.com/caritakathon