What are our projects for Winter 2021?
We’re excited to come back for Winter 2021 with the biggest team in the history of UW Blueprint! This term, we’re hosting a total of 8 teams and 86 members. Typically, we’re able to take on around 4 NPOs per term. With Blueprint running completely remote, the number of student applications has increased greatly. Our team has grown well past our usual number of ~50 members, giving us a chance to take on more impactful partnerships. For Winter 2021, we’re working on 6 NPO projects (+ 2 teams dedicated to internal projects and infrastructure).
Ontario Secondary School Dancefest
About the NPO: The Ontario Secondary School Dancefest is a free dance program encouraging students from grades 1–12 to participate in a creative and active extracurricular. They host a major 3-day event every year — filled with talks, workshops, and a competition everyone is excited about.
Our team is focusing on streamlining the judging process of the competition by moving manual tasks like collecting scoresheets and ranking into digital means — saving time and energy. We’re tweaking the product experience, building software fit for any judge’s device, and ensuring their data is safe through this judging platform.
Project Lead: Eric Li
Product Manager: Chidinma Umenwofor-Nweze
Developers: Eric Feng, Mayank Kanoria, Oustan Ding, Anish Agnihotri
Designer: Julia Sim
Building Up
About the NPO: Building Up is a non-profit construction contractor that provides long term career pathways for individuals facing barriers to employment. One of their main fundraising efforts in partnership with Raising the Roof is the Toque Campaign.
Our team is building an online fundraising platform to streamline toque ordering and engage third party sellers.
Project Lead: Jeffrey Huang
Product Manager: Raewyn Tsai
Developers: Hyunzee Kim, Tony Zhao, Patrick Du, Cynthia Ding, Hong Yi Chen, Jessica Li, Kevin Zhang
Designers: Shaahana Naufal, Stacy Kwok
The Shoe Project
About the NPO: The Shoe Project is an organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities in speaking, writing, and leadership to immigrant and refugee women. They have created a platform through which these women can showcase their brave and moving stories using a shoe as a powerful metaphor.
Our team is helping The Shoe Project demonstrate the impact of their organization on their website as they celebrate their 10th anniversary in 2021. We’re developing an interactive visualization of the portfolio of stories and content created throughout the organization’s history.
Project Lead: Nim Wijetunga
Product Manager: Jenna Hirji
Developers: Abhijeet Prasad, Hanlin Cheng, Shehryar Suleman, Saumya Gupta, Megan Penny, Dinu Wijetunga, Jeffrey Liu
Designers: Pamela Wang, Joslyn Tsui
Distress Center Calgary
About the NPO: Distress Center Calgary (DCC) is an organization dedicated towards providing crisis support for Calgary and southern Alberta residents. DCC provides various programs to reach all population segments who are in need of help, including a 24 hour crisis line and counselling.
Our team is working with DCC to build out an interactive 3D escape room solution to educate students in Calgary and across southern Alberta about mental health, crisis management and Distress Centre resources. This is an aid to the current solutions DCC uses to address these topics.
Project Lead: Ahmed Hamodi
Product Manager: Aaron Abraham
Developers: Jay Dhulia, Dhruvin Balar, Kevin Hu, Vivian Liu
Designers: Jack Zhang, Kouthar Waled
The Pregnancy Centre
About the NPO: The Pregnancy Centre (TPC) serves local families in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and supports moms and expecting moms to make healthy and informed relationship and pregnancy decisions. One program where this work is done is through the facilitation of one-off item donations between local donors and clients in need.
Our team is building a web portal that allows TPC to increase their reach to donors, communicate donations guidelines, and vet donations. Our goal is to empower The Pregnancy Centre to facilitate more high quality donations with less effort.
Project Lead: Megan Niu
Product Manager: Ainley Pena, Eason Gao
Developers: Anand Isaac, Guy Romm, Chamod Gamage, Ellen Huang, Kevin Wang
Designers: Judy Zhong, Bonnie Chin
Project READ
About the NPO: Project READ Literacy Network is an organization that empowers families in the Waterloo region with access to literacy and essential skills training.
Our team is working with Project READ to help organize and streamline their outreach and operations processes. We’re building a system that tracks interactions with families, allowing staff to efficiently make decisions to drive their organization’s growth.
Project Lead: Brittany Lau
Product Manager: Monica Xu
Developers: Daniel Chen, Prannoy Lal, Tayef Shah, Jolene Zheng
Designers: Emily Louie, Erin Ly
UW Blueprint is a student run club that provides top-tier tech for non-profit organizations. Founded at the University of Waterloo 4 years ago, we could not have provided strong partnerships with NPO’s without the dedication, passion, and time of our members. This blog features content from various Blueprint members, from all areas of experience within our organization.
We’re always looking to partner with NPOs who carry the same values! If interested, please send an inquiry to info@uwblueprint.org.
