devopsdays London - hackathon

DevOpsDays Hackathon

Summary

As part of DevOpsDays London, supported by Microsoft and Chef.io, we have organised a Hackathon with a difference on the 21st of April, also at the Grange hotel (St. Paul’s). This will take place from 8am – 8pm with all food and beverages supplied.

Purpose of the Hackathon

This isn’t a traditional Hackathon, we are looking to test the principles of DevOps against the clock and at the same time attempt to build a production quality Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that could facilitate the giving of small (micro) donations to a variety of charities so easy it becomes a way of life. The concept is to create a facility for retailers to offer their customers the option to round individual transaction to the nearest $, £, €,¥ etc., to see their donations update a fund real-time and to influence who benefits from it. We are looking for colleagues that:

• Are committed to participating the whole day

• Have technical skills which could help realise the vision – e.g. UX/CX, web and database development

• Are familiar with DevOps concepts and have experience with automation tools

If you are interested in participating in this unique event, and can take the day out to do so, please register via http://www.devopsdays.org/events/2016-london/registration/ Live the Deming mantra ….this is your opportunity to make a difference and have fun!

Vision

To produce a solution that will allow consumers to make micro donations at the point of sale so easy that it becomes a way of life. CONSUMERS donating will be able to decide / influence what their donations are being used for. RETAILERS offering the service will be able to see and use summary data relating to the fundraising they have facilitated. CHARITIES and people in need must receive these donations in an easy way, free of charge or at a minimum cost

Principles

1) Atomic Micro donation transaction Description - From the customer view point the micro donation must feel like it’s part of the transaction being carried out and completed as part of that.

Implications - This rules out solutions which require collection of donations from the customer after the point of sale - this would also be difficult in terms of many thousands of invoices to issue and collect

2) Retailer engagement

Description - It’s key for the retailer to contribute all be it with simple solution integration and minimum effort on their part. Retailers want to be good citizens too.

Implications - So it requires some salesmanship but if we can get some buy in from enterprises closer to home its compelling for other retailers. In addition secure means of communications must be established between the retailers and charity organisation collecting the funds.

3) Browser agnostic

Description – Any solution must not be locked into specific browser technologies

Implications – Helps to keep the technical implementation consistent but also rules out some options which might be easier for some technologies to implement such as Chrome plugins

4) Not for profit

Description – No profit is to be made out of the solutions delivered, the purpose is to help people in need not to make money. Implications – Minimal governance and support baked in from the outset

Some ideas regarding how to collect the micro donations

Below are some suggestions to get the grey matter going….

1) Retailer checkout “widget”

Retailer embeds a simple JavaScript snippet that loads in a donation checkbox . This widget takes a “price” parameter so we can determine the rounded up amount. Checking the box and submitting the “checkout” page calls a web service on our end that informs us of the round-up which gets persisted by the charity collecting and distributing funds. The basket total is updated and the retailer collects the donation on our behalf. We then bill the retailer on a month basis for the sum of donations.

2) Scheme holder integration Provide a solution at a different point in the process, i.e. As part of the Visa/Mastercard/Paypal transaction rather than the retailer transaction, although with their support.