Apps for Good

This innovative project was developed by CDI Portugal with the aim of raising young people’s awareness of the problems facing their communities and enabling them to find new solutions to these problems through the use of information and communication technology. It should also be noted that digital skills will be highly important for their future employability.

As part of their extracurricular activities, the young people concerned are challenged to develop technical solutions in the form of applications that help to solve a problem facing their school or the community in which they live. This initiative replicates a model that was successfully trialled in the United Kingdom.

In the first year of the project, corresponding to the 2014-2015 academic year, 300 pupils and 32 teachers from 16 schools took part, developing a total of 50 applications. In the second edition of the initiative (2015-2016) 1300 pupils and 140 teachers from 67 schools took part.

The results of both editions were presented at the Gulbenkian Foundation with an exhibition featuring the projects and prizes for the best applications.