Wednesday morning the first participants arrive so enthusiastically early. We only just switched on the coffeemaker for fresh coffee. Apps For The Planet is launched and the atmosphere is filled with curiosity and excitement.
Casper (@cspr72) kicks off with how this event came to life. It all started with a dream of creating a space where designers and developers can come together to create apps to save the planet. The mayor of Appsterdam, Mike Lee (@bmf), is building his keynote on top of this idea. Why not create apps that create a better world? Apps can be used for anything. You just have to do it. After this inspiring talk it can be hard for anyone to top it, but not for Diana Vermeij. Her speech comes straight from the heart, a life-changing story. Her message is to improve our world not only by being good for our environment but for people as well. Improve our interactions; the way we communicate must be more personal and genuine.
A first round of lectures given by Greenpeace and 1%Club explaining how they create a better world follows this breathtaking start. Their question to the appbuilders is to come with apps that can support their goal. In a quick brainstorm the first ideas are written down on paper.
In the second round Zwipit and Enviu take their place on stage. Zwipit facilitates the process of recycling your old mobile phone. This is an inspiring feeding ground for reuse and recycling apps. Gijsbert of Enviu prepared a structured brainstorm session resulting in a pile of diverse app ideas.
After a re-energizing lunch in the sun Booreiland and Pachube have their say in the third round of parallel sessions. Booreiland introduces their new concept generating method for networked relations. By looking from a different angle more app ideas are generated. Pachube, one of our sponsors explains their real-time data tools, which could be used as a resource of information for apps.
Stepping into the hallway and you see the walls filled with ideas. Impressive! Around the seven most potential ideas teams are formed in a fun and enthusiastic way. The ambiance is set and the groups start to define their app ideas. After four hours of work the teams are rewarded with drinks at Pont 13.
Day 2
The next morning the teams arrive early and immediately start working. A goodnight sleep and time for idea’s to incubate refuelled groups to bring their app ideas to a higher level.
Boy van Amstel gives an impressive talk about how to create apps in one weekend. It is possible! Just do it. Experiment, play around and be creative is his message.
The rest of the morning and afternoon is filled with hard work supported by Unitid, Boy van Amstel and our awesome crew of facilitators. Until the really last minute teams are typing, designing, coding and preparing their pitch.
At 17.30 teams pitch their ideas and everyone is impressed. So many great apps in just two days! An incredible achievement. A long deliberation of the jury follows. The tension increases. Which app do they think is the best? Finally they reappear from their chambers. Sweat is dripping from the heads of the participants. They cannot hold much longer.
Ianus Keller explains what the jury saw in each idea, because they were all great. Then he announces the winner, HospiTalk. They are rewarded with an App developer account and Wacom tablets. Shortly followed by Rejuice who has the greenest app. This is rewarded with tickets to the Rainbow Warrior III opening. And on the third place Hammertime who receives Wacom tablets as well. What a great finally after two days of hard work.
The Apps For The Planet
HospiTalk – an app to help hospitalised teenagers to share their experiences.
GoNuts – a game for kids to create awareness about gas, electricity and water usage and encourage them to use less.
Rejuice – the app in case you don’t know where to recycle your old stuff.
Hammertime – because you only use your drill for 10 minutes. So why not share it with your neighbours?
Trashure – Marktplaats 2.0. Do I need to say more?
The Green Voyage – a game for Greenpeace to get people engaged and informed about the Rainbow Warrior III campaigns.
Local Hero’s – Sharing good deeds and actions in your local community
We have another amazing prize to give away during Apps For The Planet!
Greenpeace is launching their new flagship, the Rainbow Warrior 3, in October during a big event in Amsterdam. The ship will be wind powered and built with the latest technology. A helipad houses a helicopter for surveillance and its satellite broadcast facilities ensure live images from anywhere on the planet. A rare opportunity to visit this unique vessel.
The ship will be purpose-built and better equipped to tackle the great environmental threats of our time – like climate change, overfishing, destructing of forests and toxic chemicals poisoning the Earth.
On this launch event, a very limited number of boarding passes is available to visit this amazing vessel and Greenpeace is giving away 4 tickets to one team at Apps For The Planet! Winning these tickets will not be easy. Are you up for the challenge?
Most people are probably well known with the concept of carpooling. This app, takes it to another level and presents the users with an overview of possible options for carpooling. If you use carpooling to get to your work, you are familiar with discussing a hop on location, time and a drop off location. This app does the same things, but takes it even further.
It gives the user the possibility to start a request for carpooling with anyone. This means that you’re not just carpooling with your colleagues, but with anyone driving the same route or direction. The application handles the search part for you. It just asks you to insert the time, your location and destination, so it can check up on other people heading the same way. (You might even stumble into colleagues!)
What makes this an App for the Planet?
Although the app could use some polishing here and there, the basic concept of riding together with anyone to save on gas is working. This application is a great example of a cooperative effort, where all parties are looking for a solution to drive either environmental friendlier or save costs for gas.
Instead of making the user having a hard time, some simple things like the users location by GPS make the app almost effortless to use. From the app you can instantly contact the user that’s heading from and for a direction. This app is definitely a nice one and I hope they will fine tune it in the future.
Have you ever wondered what the world would look like without oil? This Massively Multiplayer Online Alternate Reality Game (MMOARG), is a game where the world is actually without oil. 18.000 Players took the challenge and have come up with solutions and contributions to living in a world without oil.
The game is a combination between the real world and a game. The game offers players various ways to communicate with each other, about their ideas and solutions for common issues that might arise. Over 1500 contributions from the community including video reports, blogs, e-mails, phone calls and a lot of them describe solutions to protection, food, water all kinds of other things we are used to in a world with oil.
What makes this an App for the Planet?
Everything in this game is based on one of the biggest issues of this time and we are all in this together. This game shows us the future in several different ways. It’s shows us how it will start with riots and how we eventually will manage by working together and making our future a cooperative effort.
WWO offers people the ability to use whatever resources they could think of, to survive in a world without oil. This meant thinking in different ways to gather food. Some people have started their own crops, since all supermarkets are empty. Without transport, there is no system to provide us with things we’re so used to. This is one solution to a lot of issues that have been covered during the duration of this game.
This game gives us a perfect glance at the future, which at this point seems to be inevitable. By thinking of our daily needs in different ways, we are able to come up with better alternatives that only enhance our way of life on environmental, social and economic standing.
The ship will be purpose-built and better equipped to tackle the great environmental threats of our time – like climate change, overfishing, destructing of forests and toxic chemicals poisoning the Earth.
