Homeless Hackathon
Author(s)
Jon Stone
Media Relations Manager
Event leverages experiential education to address community need
For college students, Friday nights are often reserved for socializing. But on the evening of May 5, dozens of University of Denver students spent their Friday trying to solve the problem of homelessness.
They were participants in the University's first Homeless Hackathon, which was sponsored by the National Center for Excellence in Homeless Services and hosted by the Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) and its Burnes Center on Poverty and Homelessness. The participants' aim was to develop technological, social, political and/or legal solutions that best meet the needs of Denver residents who are experiencing homelessness.
"Social workers are very skilled at understanding problems in their complexity, and because of that, we tend to think in big, complex models," says hackathon steering committee Chair Kim Bender, a professor and associate dean for doctoral education at GSSW. "But there are things we can learn from engineering and other disciplines. Those big complex problems are made up of smaller, more approachable problems. There's a benefit to breaking that down and thinking outside the box."
The event's 32 participants included community members from a variety of professional backgrounds, and both graduate and undergraduate students from GSSW, international studies, computer science, marketing, engineering, psychology, construction management and other DU programs. Following an overview on the issue of homelessness, participants heard from a 12-member expert panel that included a Denver city councilwoman, a state court judge, a pastor, a psychologist, nonprofit and management experts, service providers, advocates, educators, and individuals who have experienced homelessness. Participants then broke into six teams and spent the rest of the seven-hour hackathon brainstorming, prototyping and pitching their ideas, with guidance from experts and mentors along the way.
"The [hackathon] reenergized me and reminded me why I chose social work," says participant Kelsey Stone (MSW '17), who spent her concentration year interning at Urban Peak — a nonprofit that serves youths who are experiencing homelessness. "It was vastly different from any experience I've ever had in that it was so interdisciplinary. In graduate school, you're focused on your niche; to be able to work across dimensions and share ideas and knowledge was so incredibly valuable."