Donating development

Until recently, technologists who want to make a difference have found it hard to use their skills and experience to make a social impact. Traditionally, the lengthy and complex nature of software development coupled with the cost of hardware has made it difficult to “donate IT”. These challenges are especially acute in less wealthy parts of the world, or in response to emergency situations. With the development of Agile software development methodologies and the development of cloud based infrastructures, these barriers are becoming less relevant.

In this issue of Perspectives, we look at some of the pro-bono social impact projects that ThoughtWorks has recently engaged in with a view to encouraging others to do the same.

Donating development, In this testimonial video, Todd Porter talks about how ThoughtWorks built a Ruby on Rails application to facilitate the smooth flow of donations to Smart Service Queensland's donation application, during the floods in Queensland.

Jim Highsmith Unorthodox, Unconventional and the Next Decade of Agile
Ten years ago, in February 2001, a group of 17 unconventional, unorthodox, and ok—sometimes really strange—individuals got together, wrote the Agile Manifesto and launched the Agile movement. In the last 10 years Agile delivery has often moved from the unconventional to the conventional, from the maverick to the conformist. So, what now?

Matt Simons interviews Cameron Percy (Avenace) Webinar: Turn your product vision into reality
March 16, 2011: 1pm PST | 3pm CST | 4pm EST
Join us for an engaging discussion with an entrepreneur who transformed his idea from concept to product in a very short time at a very low cost. ThoughtWorker Matt Simons will be interviewing Cameron Percy, co-founder of Avenace, to understand how he established a high performing partnership with a development team in China. You will gain insight into the process of successfully bootstrapping a startup from the perspective of an entrepreneur.

Leonardo Borges Clouds against the floods
In this presentation, ThoughtWorker Leonardo Borges talks about how Ruby on Rails saved the day during the floods in Queensland.

Firms need to focus on strategic applications
CHENNAI, India, Dec 15, 2010 - “Business processes and related IT systems are becoming more and more sophisticated and this has led to a massive increase in their complexity. As complexities increase, so do confusions and organisations end up spending disproportionate amount of resources on regular utility applications/functions rather than on strategic functions,” says software expert and author Martin Fowler.

“We may have to try out many things that may not work. The focus should be on introducing features quickly and beating competition. There should be separate teams handling the two functions. More than allocating resources, the idea is to tune people accordingly to meet the specific requirements,” he says.