Code for the Kingdom

About

What is Code for the Kingdom?

Technology is a powerful tool that can help eradicate injustice, teach about God’s word, and strengthen the Church. What if you could be a part of building this kind of technology that can be used to change lives?

That is what Code for the Kingdom is all about. Partner with like-minded people who are changing lives by tackling real-world issues from a Christian perspective.

One common thing we hear from the Christian community is “But I’m not a (Programmer, Hacker, Visionary, Business Leader, Designer, Professional Genius, etc.) What would I have to offer?”

You are more talented than you’re giving yourself credit for! We all strive to live our lives in service to the Kingdom. This is your chance to live that out in a weekend of focused collaboration! Each person brings unique perspective, passion, and expertise to the table. When like-minded people come together, incredible things can happen.

Join us in March for a weekend hackathon at The Addison Treehouse in Addison, TX where you will be able to meet and work together with people who are serious about using technology to further the Kingdom.

Spirit of the Event – Transforming Lives

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” - Timothy Keller

Dallas has one of the most vibrant and active entrepreneurial communities in the country - not to mention being FULL of people who are serving the Lord through technology in their careers. A large part of the weekend will be dedicated to building relationships.

If you can’t attend the entire event then just come Friday night for our kickoff or Saturday morning when the hacking is in full swing. You will experience the Dallas tech community in action. Don’t be surprised if you end up staying through the weekend.

Register now to join us in Dallas/Fort Worth as we work to leveraging technology to transforms lives. Plus, you get to rub shoulders with some of the most effective global ministries, technologists, entrepreneurs, investors, hi-tech accelerators, church leaders and creative individuals from every discipline.

WINNERS

Here are the winners.

Schedule

Meet with Mentors is a great opportunity to connect with industry experts who can guide you and your concepts. The organizers will help you connect with mentors of your choice on Friday/Saturday.

Challenges

Here are the challenges to get you started. Please remember that more challenges may be presented between now and the first day of the event. If you would like to discuss with potential team members, or even with the champions of these challenges, please join and leverage our Google Plus community.

In case you are already interested or working on a project, don’t change course. But please keep in mind that your project must be aligned with the Transforming Lives Theme of the event. Please come prepared to pitch your project at the event so that you can recruit teams to work on them.

Human Trafficking

How can technology for good be used to disrupt the technologies used by the human traffickers to conduct their business?

Technology has become the predominant tool of sex traffickers. The ease by which they can acquire mobile phones and new numbers, allows the traffickers to coordinate meeting points, terms of the transaction, and to maintain communication with the victims and the “johns”. Escort websites and online classified ad sites provide the traffickers with countless opportunities to conduct their businesses and publish those mobile numbers. But what if you were to create technology that would take the very same information traffickers advertise, and use it to direct so much traffic to their mobile phones to the point their main means of communication becomes useless?

Champions

Organ Donation Crisis

Can you create technology to help every church challenge its members to be donor organs, saving tens of thousands of lives every year and greatly reducing the organ donation crisis?

Currently in the US alone, according to the national data (http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/converge/latestData/step2.asp) by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, there are over 120,000 people waiting for organ transplants and only about 14,000 donors. In addition, 82% of the waiting list is for kidneys. But what if the right technology at the hand of churches across the country could serve to educate, engage, and recruit Christians to give the gift of life and double the number of donors?

How can you affect the life of the person in your community who needs a new kidney, and his/her family? What if technology allowed the opportunity to become a donor to be present every time someone interacts with her/his church digital tools, instead of every few years during driver license renewal?

Champions

Scripture engagement

Faith Comes By Hearing (Digital Bible Platform) – How can you increase scripture engagement, now?

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you…” James 4:8, ESV. It is an amazing time to live in, and technology allows us to draw near to God with an array of Digital tools. With many Bible apps already out there, what can we now do to drive scripture engagement? Is it with a gamification, witnessing apps to share with others, or maybe it’s something that you have been dreaming about? We call upon you, with your God given gifts and abilities to create engaging Biblical tools for the kingdom of God, using our Digital Bible Platform API and its over 870 languages. Help us increase scripture engagement to quench thirsts, clothe spiritually, and equip mentally with the power of the Bible, in a language people understand. http://www.digitalbibleplatform.com/.

Champions

Online Missionaries and the ever changing messaging apps

How can technology connect people searching for God online regardless of what OTT messaging service they use?

We all understand that the best way to serve people is by meeting them where they are. Global Media Outreach is serving the millions of people each day that search on the Internet for a spiritual term. Tens of thousands (and growing) of Online Missionaries (OMs) are in place to respond to those asking for help via the Internet. With Over-The-Top instant messaging services ( such as WhatsApp, Kik, and many others), becoming more and more the preferred means of communication when the person searching is concerned about SMS costs, OMs must have a unified way to be in contact with the people they serve, regardless of which OTT messaging apps each party is using.

Champions

Games to Teach Generosity

How can games impart the need and benefits of being generous to the mobile first generation of children?

Knowing that generosity brings about spiritual growth and that generosity is a like a muscle (the sooner they start exercising it the stronger the person will become), how can technology help children become generous? What if games could simulate the personal, familiar, and communal growth or decline that comes with being generous of mind, time, love, and resources?

Champions

Symbolic Bible Translation (when a language has no written words)

How do you translate the Bible into a language that has no written word?

By using audio recordings, The Bible is able to be translated, shared, and heard. But this is a slow and time consuming process. Currently, symbols are created on paper to represent key thoughts in a specific order. This helps the translator remember the verses they hear and retain them as they speak passages from memory. What could be done to make this better and faster?

Champions

Food Deserts (not to be confused with desserts)

What if technology could help activate the neighborhood, the community, and the Church to help bring affordable, healthy and nutritious food options to urban areas lacking them? What if you could create the AirBnB for food deserts?

Just South of Dallas, there is a large community of lower-income neighborhoods that meet the criteria for a “food desert”: an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. In these poverty-stricken areas, many single-parent children are left to purchase, prepare and feed their families as their parents work. This lack of access leads to child-obesity, illness, and much more. But what if technology could help people “love their neighbor” by activating a community to work together in acquiring, preparing, distributing, selling, and/or serving better food to the neighborhood? (Article about Dallas Food Deserts: http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2014/03/17/how-will-dallas-combat-its-food-deserts/)

Champions

Awards

Participants will compete for non-cash Recognition Awards in four categories:

• Best Overall started at the hackathon
• Best Overall started before the hackathon
• Best ideation only project
• Runner-up started at the hackathon
• Runner-up started before the hackathon
• Runner-up ideation only project
• People’s choice (voted by all participants across all submitted projects)
• Plus, other awards for best use of sponsors’ platforms and judges’ special awards.

After the hackathon, your solutions will be featured in a Leadership Network Advance edition reaching over 50,000 church leaders worldwide.

Mentors

Meet with Mentors is a great opportunity to connect with industry experts who can guide you and your concepts. Schedule your sessions with mentors of your choice on Friday/Saturday and get connected.

Trey Bowles
CEO and Cofounder, The Dallas Entrepreneur Center (The DEC)

Trey Bowles is a serial entrepreneur, social capitalist and educator. Trey Bowles is co-founder and CEO of the Dallas Entrepreneur Center (DEC), where entrepreneurs learn how to start, build and grow businesses through training, education, mentorship, promotion and capital investment. In addition, Trey is Chair for Startup America; Adjunct Professor for Entrepreneurship at Southern Methodist University in the Division of Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship; and co-founder of the Mayor’s Council in Dallas. Bowles has held key leadership roles in the industries of music, entertainment and disruptive technology, including running the popular peer-to-peer file-sharing site Morpheus. Trey lives in Dallas with his wife and two children and is committed to helping build a collaborative ecosystem at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship and education within the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

LouAnn Hunt
Digital Bible Manager, Faith Comes By Hearing

LouAnn Hunt is the Digital Bible Manager at Faith Comes By Hearing. She leads an awesome team who created the second-most downloaded Bible app, Bible.is, offering Bibles in over 800 languages. LouAnn also oversees the Digital Bible Platform, the world's largest digital library of Bible text, audio, and video content, which is available via API. Digital initiatives she manages include localization strategies, Deaf Bible app, KIDZ Bible app, Smart TV apps, radio, and satellite.She loves all things digital and is passionate about getting God's Word to everyone, everywhere in their heart language through every digital means available now and in the future. She is always looking for innovative solutions and out-of-the-box thinking to get the Bible into the hands of every human on earth. Her team's vision is for no one to have to search for the Bible in their language, "the Bible should just BE..."

Shawn Ring
Executive Pastor of Table/myGateway, Gateway Church

As Executive Pastor of Table/myGateway of Gateway Church, Shawn oversees the technology-based ministries of spiritual formation, community and mobile engagements. Shawn has over 20 years experience in leading and integrating ministry, technology and business. Prior to joining Gateway, Shawn co-founded a national, filtered internet service provider, Integrity Online. He also led several overseas ministry initiatives, including serving as President and CTO of Assemble Communications, a multi-national telecommunications company. He has been married to his wife, Brenda, for over 21 years, and together they have two girls and two boys.a.

Ali Llewellyn
Co-founder, International Space Apps Challenge

Ali works on expanding the scale and scope of public-private mass collaborations that improve governance and engage citizens in creating a better world. Her background in education, cross-cultural communication and theology provides the passion and articulation necessary to help companies and communities take their mission to the next level. She was a co-founder of the International Space Apps Challenge and National Day of Civic Hacking, two of the largest mass collaborations in history, and has traveled widely with a vision to ignite church planting movements in the nations.

Blake Burris
CEO, CleanWeb Initiative

Brian Emerson
Digital Media Supervisor, Faith Comes By Hearing

Brian Emerson is the Digital Media Supervisor at Faith Comes By Hearing, a ministry working to bring the Bible everywhere for everyone, by any means. As one of the original team members of the FCBH digital team, Brian helps to coordinate and project manage a myriad of digital technologies at the ministry. This includes their suite of apps: Bible.is, Bible.is KIDZ, Deaf Bible, and the Bible.is Radio Network, as well as use of the ministries open access API, the Digital Bible Platform; the world's largest digital library of Bible text, audio, and video content. He also helps manage a variety of social media platforms, the Bible.is help desk, and data reporting. With a background in theatrical entertainment, working in theatre�s across the country and with Disney, Brian is fueled with creativity and zest for life. This energy empowers him each day to learn the trending curves of technology, in order to reach to world with God�s Word.

Drew Dickens
Director and Content Lead, Abide Prayer

Drew is the Director and Content Lead of Abide Prayer (Abide.Is), an amazing new curation platform of voiced guided prayers from the world’s leading voices in prayer. Abide is being built by a dedicated 12-member technology and design team in Palo Alto, CA that moved over from Google, eBay, Tesla, and others. Prior to Abide, Drew was CEO of the international evangelism response ministry of Need Him Ministries for 19 years from its launch to global influence. It was established in 1996 to establish a safe place to engage millions of individuals worldwide in authentic live conversations about Jesus Christ through innovative media and progressive response opportunities. Drew’s passion is to identify and eliminate media and technology barriers for the critical emerging Mosaic and Millennial generations to take a first freeing step towards spiritual engagement with Jesus

Jason Illian
Founder/CEO, BookShout

Jason is the founder and CEO of RethinkBooks.com, a dynamic social e-book company which focuses on engaging and interactive content allowing people to read together. With more than 10 years of technology and executive experience, Jason Illian is a visionary in the mobile and social new media space. Having raised over $30 million for new business ventures, Jason has a passion for taking great ideas and making them businesses. His strategic thinking has helped corporations, organizations, non-profits, churches, and leaders be more innovative. Jason is also the former CEO of Big Jump Media (godtube.com and tangle.com), a Christian video network that had over 4 million monthly users.

Justin Miller
Director of Technology, Global Media Outreach

Justin Miller is the Director of Technology at Global Media Outreach, an internet ministry whose vision is to share, disciple, and connect people with the gospel. As Director of Technology, Justin oversees a highly skilled team of developers who are responsible for 200 websites in 26 languages and have scaled them to reach over 1.3 billion people with the gospel. Justin believes anything is possible with enough time and hardware and loves solving practical problems with technology. Prior to GMO, Justin worked on technology teams at Cru and UCF, and graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2007 with degrees in math and computer science, and a focus on cryptography, computer forensics, and network security

Kent Shaffer
Founder, Open Church

Kent Shaffer lives in an RV with his wife and 2 kids. It's part of his work with Open Church - an initiative to help disciples of Jesus collaborate, learn from each other, and share resources. At the core of this collaborative ecosystem is a free, global library of digital content and tools. He also co-founded a design and marketing firm, launched and sold a few tech startups, and gave strategic counsel to groups such as LifeChurch.tv, Saddleback Church, charity: water, Leadership Network, and OneHope. He writes at ChurchRelevance.com about the intersection of theology and methodology - what we do vs what Christ said. His ministry roots began as a missionary’s kid in Peru and evolved into 10+ years of youth and children’s ministry at Church on the Move, LifeChurch.tv, and Frontline Church.

Lydia Varela
Founder, LatinaXchange

Lydia Varela founded LatinaXchange as a means to equip Latinas to be successful in their personal lives, their communities and their careers. Combining her extensive marketing experience, strong community relationships, and her passions for connecting people. Lydia is creating a community of vibrant and innovative women championing being a confident Latina today. Lydia wants to become a Latina leader preparing Latinas to become the best version of themselves by hosting and collaborating with key groups to create events that provide valuable experiences and the opportunity to connect, share and exchange resources. A Native Texan, Lydia is deeply connected to her local community but also considers herself a Citizen of the World. Through extensive global travel, work in international markets and volunteering with international groups, she has seen that other parts of the world (and our country) are more forward-thinking in terms of sustainable living and recycling. And she knows there are fantastic opportunities to do the same thing here. Lydia is thinking globally and acting locally. Lydia has 20 years of marketing and branding experience, including 14 years at Mary Kay Inc., where she developed plans and communication strategies for marketing beauty products to women around the world. Most recently, she consulted with small businesses on branding and awareness. Lydia holds a Marketing Communications degree from The University of Texas at Arlington. With a passion for empowering women, Lydia is active in many local organizations. After years of working to make change for the better, she is already an influencer in the community. A natural connector, Lydia enjoys volunteering, networking, local arts and social media. Her strong relationships and organizational ties afford her opportunities to communicate with and educate other influential women. Recognition: D Academy Fellow 2015 The Dallas Entrepreneur Center, Ambassador 2014 Latino BIG Influencer, Dallas Convention & Visitor Bureau Leadership Texas Class of 2012 La Cima Volunteer Leadership Award, 2010 Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Nicholas Skytland
Co-founder, National Day of Civic Hacking

Nicholas Skytland is an expert on harnessing the power of open innovation, data and technology to reform business and government. He founded NASA's Open Innovation Program, where he led the implementation of numerous White House mandates, including the Open Government, Open Data and Digital Strategy directives, with a focus on liberating high value data sets, pushing forward the use of open source software, developing cutting-edge technology, and creating participatory opportunities to engage citizens in solving humanity’s grand challenges.

Organizers

API

At Code For The Kingdom, we value your precious time and don’t want you to reinvent the wheel. That’s why our sponsors have come forward to offer their APIs, in order to enable you to build better and faster. That said, please note that there is no compulsion that these APIs must be used or any other restrictions on technologies that you may use at the Hackathon.

We believe that these platforms may assist you as you create effective solutions to today’s problems. So leverage these APIs and the best resources around so that together, we can create technology that matters.

Access digital Bible content in hundreds of languages. Free.

Easy access to Bible text, audio, and videos with simple API calls to the Digital Bible Platform. Become one of the few developers to provide Deaf Bible videos in your app.

Help Faith Comes By Hearing enhance the Digital Bible Platform for the developer community. Provide your feedback and in turn support enhancements for your apps.

During the event, this username and key will be active so developers can immediately use the API. If you want to continue using the API after the event you can sign up for your own key.

• Username: [email protected]
• Password: Dallas2015
• Login URL: www.DigitalBiblePlatform.com
• DBT Key: 123187e179a0ee790c50e1f10fdf6ce7

Makes searching AV files simple for developers to integrate into their applications.

Clarify is a self-service API that allows you to make your audio and video files actionable via search and extracted keywords and topics. The Clarify API provides a RESTful API to extract knowledge from audio and video content.

• Developer URL: https://developer.clarify.io/

Sponsors

Rules

Why the rules?

The rules are in place to give every participant the same opportunity for success. In order to be eligible for the prizes, participants must follow the rules. However, if you want to participate and not follow the rules below, you will be permitted to do so, although you will not be eligible for the prizes.

Importantly, you can start coding ahead of the hackathon or at the hackathon. So what are you waiting for? Register now and get started!

Read the rules

You can start coding ahead of the hackathon or at the hackathon.

USE WHAT YOU KNOW

Participants are free to use any tools that they know, in order to help them code.

CODING RULES

There will be identical but separate awards for teams that started coding before the hackathon as well as teams that started coding at the hackathon. However, some or all of the coding must take place at the hackathon, in order to be eligible for the awards.

TRY TO USE OUR SPONSOR’S API’S

Although not mandatory, participants are encouraged to use our platform sponsor’s technologies.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Participants have full ownership of what they build during the Code for the Kingdom hackathon and are free to do with it as they wish. If you build as a team, the IP is shared by the team. If you build as an individual, the IP is all yours.

FINISH ON TIME

Participant must submit their project by the submission time on Sunday afternoon. No late submissions will be accepted.

FAQ