# 5774
Nearly thirty years ago I made a fairly good living as a computer programmer. Of course, things weren’t quite as sophisticated as they are today.
The Internet didn’t exist, an IBM-PC with two floppy drives for storage and 256K of RAM was the hot computer of the day, and we wrote laborious code using stone knives and a BASCOM 1.0 compiler.
While the technology has long since passed me by (the languages that I once knew are now only found in museums), I still have a deep appreciation for the programmer’s art.
So I’m delighted that Lisa at CIDRAP sent me a link to the following contest, offered by the HHS, for the development of preparedness apps for FACEBOOK,
Here are some excerpts from the press release.
News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 22, 2011Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343HHS sponsors contest for Facebook personal preparedness applications
Federal officials are challenging software application developers to design new Facebook applications to help people prepare for emergencies and get support from friends and family after an emergency strikes – from personal medical emergencies to natural or man-made disasters.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) issued the ASPR Lifeline Facebook Application Developer Challenge in collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a health-focused online community of developers, designers, patients, providers, health care organizations that promotes health technology innovation.
The online challenge runs throughout National Preparedness Month in September and the remainder of the 2011 hurricane season, closing Nov. 4.
“After disasters, a tremendous number of people use Facebook to post and share information,” said Assistant Secretary Nicole Lurie, M.D., a rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service. “We’re challenging our country’s most innovative developers to create apps that help people use Facebook not only to reach out to friends and family for any kind of help they may need after emergency but also to become better prepared in the first place.”
The person or team developing the best application will receive $10,000 from HHS and free admission from Health 2.0 to the 2012 Health 2.0 conference, and will be invited to an HHS event with Dr. Lurie. Second place will be awarded $5,000, and third place will receive $1,000.
As noted above, September is National Preparedness Month, and you are encouraged to join the NPM coalition.
