By Jessica Hamer | Business development manager
The 2014 Apps for Good Awards were an exciting whirl of activity, featuring 18 finalist student ideas for apps to solve issues in the environment, communities, learning, information, productivity and finances, selected from among those submitted by 17,000 Apps for Good students.
In addition to the six issue area categories, the Apps for Good Awards include a People’s Choice Award, bestowed on the most popular app idea. The journey Apps for Good has taken as an organisation is neatly mirrored in the journey of the People's Choice Award category, with the astounding number of votes cast at this year’s awards reflecting the growth of the organisation and of public awareness of the Apps for Good programme and mission.
At the first Apps for Good awards in 2012, the event was quite small and voting for the People’s Choice award was confined to the event itself, with paper ballots cast on site and frantically counted by hand backstage, by one of the 8 Apps for Good staff the organisation than employed. The following year, voting was slightly more sophisticated, with a digital platform used to cast votes, and voting confined to the area where students were presenting their ideas. As the votes came in, the monitor realised that people off-site were casting ballots, and with that realisation came the awareness that interest in the Apps for Good finalists had grown beyond the confines of a single building.
This year the People’s Choice Award voting opened weeks in advance of the Awards, with votes coming from far and wide, from Caithness, Scotland to Budehaven, Cornwall to North Carolina, U.S.A., reflecting the global reach of Apps for Good and the diverse origins of student participants. Over 14,000 votes were cast this year, resulting in Occasion Location from Sutton Grammar School for Boys, in Surrey winning the award. Occasion Location and the other winning teams went on to attend Skills Matter workshops on turning an idea into a great product, and will continue to receive mentorship and advice from the amazing Apps for Good expert team, as they work with development agencies over the next 6 months to truly bring their ideas to life, and launch them on the marketplace.
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