In 2004 I founded a 501 (C) 3 called Transition Offenders Program or TOP. www.topwashington.org . TOP helps inmates transition from prison back to their communities by providing resources that they can write to and glean for themselves. The idea is to get them to secure these resources so that they can create a viable comprehensive release plan.
What I need is an application for android tablets (that the inmates have in our state) that will allow them to enter their demographic information, and that we can share names and addresses of agencies that are amenable to working with these transitioning men and women. I also want to eventually post videos of the self-help variety to help them with personal growth should they choose. This app needs to work on PCs as well that use windows. Some inmates don’t have devices and use the pc that’s in the day room. Inmates do not have internet access and the information is sent to a local area network server where it’s reviewed then released.
Please email me at larry@topwashington.org or larry.a.ballesteros@gmail.com.
This was the last responce that I got.
Hi Larry!
I saw your project on donate: code and am interested in volunteering!
As a bit about myself (just realizing I should’ve put this on the bid), I’m a full stack software engineer at a startup in the energy sector. I have experience building things from scratch, handling both frontend UI/UX concerns as well as backend development. I’ve always been a big believer in rehabilitation over punitive measures.
I have a few thoughts and questions, some of which you noted on the project page:
– you requested an android app stating a need for it to be usable on tablets. You also mentioned wanting something that would work on the desktop. I think a Progressive Web Application (sorry I misnamed it as Single Page Application on the bid I made) would fill these needs more effectively, since it can be made by a single developer creating a single app/code base, but works on every device that has a web browser (while still not requiring internet access) . It would look just like another app downloaded to the home screen
– whats the deployment environment? You mention a local server that the inmate data is reviewed at. I’m assuming there’s a local network, and that we would also need to create an application that does the data review as well? This server would also be a convenient location for serving the web app so that inmate tablets and the day room PC can download/access the app.
– whats the process for releasing information from that local server, and general access to it? If it’s being used to deploy/serve the app, how do we want to handle updates?
– would you be okay with this being an open source project? This would mean that source code would be published on github so that others who want to use/modify/deploy this app could do so. Personal information would not be published, and I can also make it so that the set of agencies is not published as well if so desired.
– is there any desire for this to also be published on the web for anyone to use? (ideally those who’ve already made it out of prison and are looking for support)
Looking forward to hearing back from you and working together to build this!
– Dyllan
© donate:code 2020
