HACKER Q&A
📣 pvorb

How to help aid agencies as a software engineer


Do any of you have advice or experience on how to support international aid agencies by working as a software engineer?

I'm already donating regularly to organizations like UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières.

What else can I do in the form of voluntary work?

I already searched for something like this but it led nowhere.

  👤 brudgers Accepted Answer ✓
Supervising and organizing volunteers is time consuming. For something like software engineering, vetting potential volunteers would also be a huge undertaking. Organizations are typically better served by contracting out important projects or having regular staff handle important work that requires brain power. Volunteers are not reliably committed over the long term to the degree employees and contractors are.

Maybe start small and volunteer at a local homeless shelter or food bank or hospital doing whatever needs doing irrespective of it being software engineering.