A team of CSE students working in a startup is now taking their next step with the launch of a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. The startup, Giventure, calls itself "your personal assistant for volunteering”. Co-founded by Computer Science majors Sneha Jayaprakash (pictured at center with some team members) and Winnie Xu, Giventure is building a clearinghouse to match volunteers with potential causes and charitable ventures in their own backyard, or anywhere in the world. “Giventure sends you recommendations for volunteer opportunities that are customized to your skills, interests, and availability,” said Jayaprakash, adding that the web app derives your interests from your Facebook page and your skills from LinkedIn. The goal is to tailor your tailor your volunteer experience to suit your abilities and passions and location.
“The team’s ultimate goal is to make an easy-to-use system to double the percentage of volunteers in America by the year 2020,” explained Jayaprakash, who is supported by a team of approximately a dozen software programmers, most of them CSE students.
Now, the team has launched its Kickstarter campaign to raise $12,000 for further development of the system. Within 24 hours of launching the campaign on June 2, Giventure took in more than $7,000 from 40 backers – putting the team more than half-way to their goal with 28 more days to go in the campaign.
“After three long years of research and design, we have a real working prototype that we think every volunteer will love,” noted Jayaprakash. “Now we need help to finish developing the platform and push it out to the world.” The Kickstarter campaign aims to cover further development this summer, some enhanced features for text messaging and the recommendation engine, and to cover the cost of sufficient infrastructure to ensure a “fast, seamless experience” even if there is broad uptake of the service with volunteers and nonprofit organizations.
Learn more about Giventure or donate through its Kickstarter campaign page.
Prior to naming Giventure, Jayaprakash and Xu received awards for an earlier incarnation of the volunteering app, then known as Bystanders to Upstanders.
Previous article about Bystanders to Upstanders winning a USD Social Innovation Challenge prize.