Creating Apps to Benefit Marginalized Communities
summary
Shows an actual app: We Read Too is a mobile directory of books by authors of color that launches with ~300 entries and grows to ~880 via curated suggestions, funded with a $15,000 IndieGoGo to build Android and web. Gives concrete peers: Tala uses alternative data to issue microloans and hires locally in the Philippines and Kenya; Abolition rounds up purchases to fund bail and reports sending over 200 people home in four months. Notes VC contrast: a novelty app raised $1.5M while community tools struggle for funding.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (6)
- 0:00Start
- 0:11venmo
- 1:09What kind of apps are VC investors more willing to fund?
- 3:04Launched in 2014, a directory of children and teen books written by PoC featuring characters of color.
- 6:33Apps are not the main solution Technology can provide awareness and benefit lives, but it cannot fix the systemic issues that exist.
- 15:17Recording and Production Confreaks
related talks
39mBuilding Meaningful Software
27mSolidarity not Charity and Collective Liberation
32mKeynote: Building Community & Supporting Others
58mI Am a Developer at 54
17mTechnology as a Means to Equality
25mTech Access to the Underrepresented
04mBetter Living Through Software
25mLeading Without Permission: Building Digital Diaspora as an Afro-Latina