On the 2nd Day we visited the organization Centers of Digital Inclusion (CDI)

CDI’s mission is to mobilize individuals, transform communities and improve quality of life through technology. This is achieved through one of their projects, Apps for Good, where students and teachers work together in creating ideas of apps, i.e. small software programs that change the world and challenge the status quo.

CDI is the Portugiese chapter of the international organization Apps for Good.  Apps for Good is an open-source technology education movement that partners with educators in schools and learning centers to deliver our course to young people 10-18 years of age. We provide the course content, training and connections to our Expert volunteers, and then let teachers do what they are best at – inspiring and guiding young people. In the course, students work together as teams to find real issues they care about and learn to build a mobile, web or social app to solve them. Like professional entrepreneurs, students go through all key aspects of new product development, from idea generation, technical feasibility and programming to product design, deciding on business models and marketing. In Apps for Good, they train teachers and other educators to work locally with young people but also match them with professional designers, developers and entrepreneurs who volunteer their time and skills through our Expert Community to advise young people in their app ideas.

João Baracho (Director Executivo) gave us an insight in CDI and its projects. We had the opportunity to listen to a group of 16 year old students who developed an App that makes suggestion on meals made on what is left in your cupboard or fridge. Therefore they collected some recipes, created a database of ingredients. They even included a shopping list function if you have to buy missing ingredients for a meal. The App provides two ways of using it. One is based on what is based in cupboard, fridge or freezer, f.e. you have milk, 2 eggs, flour and bacon. The search result is omelette or pancakes. The reason why develop the app, was that they discovered that it is easy for their parents to buy groceries, but if the kids ask “ What’s for dinner, mum?“ Their parents sometimes did not know what to cook.