The University of Auckland

Project #68: Extending the matchmaking system for the Voluntarily platform

Back

Description:

Background

The Voluntarily platform Voluntari.ly (https://voluntarily.nz/) is a charitable initiative that aims to connect NZ schools with corporate volunteers and digital technology course content.

Schools today need to teach digital technologies. While training programmes for teachers exist, what's really needed is experts in digital technology to work closely with teachers and ground them in real-world context.

Several large tech companies in NZ, such as Microsoft, Datacom and Xero, have staff volunteer programmes allowing their staff to spend paid work time giving back to their communities. Many of these available volunteer hours go unused every year. There are a wide range of digital technology programmes available, but many schools lack the technical know-how to run these programmes without assistance.

Voluntarily aims to link schools and teachers that need assistance, with willing corporate volunteers and content they can use to deliver exciting digital technology programmes to our youngest generation.

This project

One of the most important features of the platform is its matchmaking system - that which recommends appropriate opportunities to volunteers, and appropriate volunteers to schools / opportunity providers. A previous part-4 SE project put the prototype matchmaking system in place, which allows potential volunteers to search for opportunities based on criteria such as their location and expertise. This project aims to extend this system to allow schools / providers to actively seek out volunteers, as well as investigate and potentially improve the performance and accuracy of the current system.

Voluntarily is both a startup company and an open source project. Therefore, in addition to satisfying the requirements for your part-4 project, your team will gain valuable experience with modern full-stack web applications, and in contributing in an open source environment.

Type:

Undergraduate

Outcome:

The successful project will produce the following outcomes:

Prerequisites

None

Specialisations

Categories

Supervisor

Co-supervisor

Team

Lab

Lab allocations have not been finalised