About

Apps for Good is the new programme by CDI Europe where young people learn to create apps that change their world.

During April- June 2010 we successfully ran the first prototype course with 9 young people between 16-26 years at the High Trees Development Trust in Tulse Hill/South London. We are now busy preparing to re-run the course on High Trees between August- October 2010 and to launch in four other locations in Greater London and the South East of England until the end of the year.

OK, so let’s break that down a bit more, what Apps for Good is all about:

Apps can change your life

Here are two examples of more than 160,000 apps that have been developed so far:

• Car Locator was developed by Edward Kim during his family holidays last year and just recently announced that he is making $13,000 a month…
• Or 14-year old Dylan Maryk from Kensington who has created different iPhone apps that took him to Mobile Congress in Barcelona advising the CEOs of Google and Vodafone on how to attract young people and is now running his own company MicroApps

These two apps have changed the lives of their creators. It did not matter who they are, where they came from,  or what they look like as long as people find the result of their work useful.

Young people can learn how to do it

Our programme is focused on training young people on how to imagine, design and develop mobile apps, so they can become the next generation of app creators, designers and developers. We have started working with young people who are aged between 16 to 26 and currently not in full-time education, jobs or training, but we are now looking to open up the programme to other audiences including young people between 14 to 18 in full-time education.

Learning philosophy

Over the past 15 years CDI has trained more than 1.3 million (young) people in IT & technology skills. CDI’s network globallyhas successfully established a problem-driven learning model that  was initially inspired by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and strongly focuses on problem-driven learning that is supported by local action and critical reflection. You can learn more about CDI’s model and our global network on the CDI Europe website.

Platform

We achieved our initial aim that at the end of the first course 3 teams of 3 young people designed and developed their own Android app  - thanks to the help of 3 professional developer mentors. Going forward we will continue to experiment with tools like the App Inventor for Android, the help for developer mentors and other more platform generic tools like Titanium and PhoneGap. Depending on the success of our pilot programme we will open up the course to web and browser-based apps as well as other mobile platforms.

Apps for Good is proud to be supported by: