CHANGE.ORG ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF FIRST “HACK FOR CHANGE” APP CONTEST

50 engineers and designers compete in 24-hour hackathon, Winners receive $10K in seed funding for their social good apps

Fifty engineers and designers from the US and Canada competed this past weekend in the first ever ”Hack for Change” contest, a 24-hour hackathon at the San Francisco headquarters of Change.org, the world’s fastest growing platform for social change.

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist.org, worked with a panel of judges to award ten thousand dollars in seed funding to the top three finalists. Brent Fitzgerald and Huned Botee from San Francisco took the top prize with a community based text messaging service, “Good Neighbor,” that sends messages when neighbors need a hand with quick tasks or errands.

“In just 24 hours the contestants built a series of incredible social good apps and Change.org would like to thank all of the participants for competing,” said Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org. “We look forward to more “Hack for Change” contests in the months and years to come.”

The first runner up at “Hack for Change” was ”Project AnonyMouse,” a platform developed by Aaron Moy and Aashay Desai that connects members of LGBT community in need with mentors. The second runner up was ”FindMeAPet.org,” a service that text messages you when dogs get added to a shelter in your area. It was built by Catrina Roallos, Corey Grusden, and Charles Finkel.

The weekend event hosted at Change.org in partnership with Code for America, Mashable, the Sunlight Foundation and others aims to accelerate a growing movement of companies and entrepreneurs who seek to create web and mobile applications to advance social change.

Follow the "Hack for Change" conversation on Twitter: #hackforchange.