How you can help

While we hope that we will eventually reach a point where HANDI can generate revenue to support its work for at least the next few months we are going to rely on people being willing to give their time to help us get established and on donations to cover our start-up expenses.

We have many ideas about what HANDI can do and need you help to shape our development and implement our plans.  To move forward we need People (volunteers willing to give some of their time and knowledge) and resources (in cash and kind).

What we do will depend on what members of the network want to do and the extent to which they are willing to commit their efforts to make these things happen. However, the initial promoters have a number of suggestions. If you would like to offer your help in relation to any of these or want to make further suggestions please get in touch. info@handihealth.org

This is our initial list:

Web Platform

We want to build a rich web platform for the virtual side of our community, probably using open source tools.

We need help from web developers and designers to build:

A searchable, user maintained directory of people, organisations and apps.
An online discussion forum
A Q&A site and, knowledge base (maybe a wiki or stack exchange)
An online booking service for events  (maybe eventbrite or eventwax)
Source code repository for public domain and open source software (maybe Source Forge)
We already have offers of facilities in the cloud, but can always use more.

Running Local Groups

We already have established plans for groups in London, Warwick and Newcastle with links with the local NHS, universities and innovation centres and suggestions for groups in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Swansea and Manchester, but basically we will run a group anywhere there is local support.

We need speakers, people to run groups and provide venues. It will be for those running groups to decide what they want to do but possibilities include:

Workshops
Seminars
Hack sessions
Brown bag meetings
Journal clubs
Speed dating (for business partnering opportunities)

Creating Content

We want to share information and knowledge between members. This needs people with specialist knowledge and expertise who are willing to contribute content. Mainly for the web, but ideally in a form that can be repurposed (e.g. for print, presentations etc.) which might include:
White papers
Guides
Tutorials
CBT material
Newsletter
Videos

Marketing and PR

We need people who can help us with Marketing and PR to grow our network and promote our vision.

Running a National Conference

We have embryonic plans for a national conference. Is this a good idea or should we work to participate with an apps stream in one or more of the established conference.

HANDI Stuff

We need to do more work to define what we want HANDI to do, our vision, what we mean by an app, who we need to influence and what we need them to do to make the world good for health and care apps

We need to work out Governance arrangements for HANDI and how we are going to fund our work. The basics are set. We will soon be registered as a CIC limited by Guarantee and will then have the essential legals, finances and business processes in place, but we need to develop these as we grow.