Tag Archives: users

She’s the First gives girls in developing nations a chance at education

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Quick Summary

  • Yapp highlights She’s the First and its work supporting girls’ education as part of a mission-driven story.
  • The post connects technology and storytelling with a cause-focused organization.
  • Readers interested in nonprofit impact and social-good use cases will benefit most from this feature.

 

She's the First


In 2009, recent college grab Tammy Tibbetts thought up (and bought up the URL for) She’s the First, inspired by her work with Donate My Dress and a college final. The organization — which sponsors girls’ education in developing nations to give them the chance to become the first in their families to graduate from secondary school — launched with a video PSA in 2009, and has grown leaps and bounds since.

College and high school chapters starting popping up across the States after a student at the University of Notre Dame held a tie-dye cupcake bake sale, raising $900 for She’s the First to send 3 girls to school in Nepal. These {Campus} chapters of She’s the First grew, and helped bring Yapp into the picture.

For their 2012 campus leaders conference, She’s the First put together an app as a digital and mobile version of their program, with the ability to interact. They loved  the Yapp so much that this year, they ended up replacing their printed programs, which wouldn’t be ready in time for the summit, with the app. Leaders from 83 high schools, colleges and universities gathered to learn, reflect, and amp up, with all the info and updates they needed in the palm of their hands.

The awesome mission of She’s the First is supported by fundraising events from these college and high school chapters. They’ve solidified the “social selling” model with a twist. Similar to charity: water, they want people to use their own creativity and passions to raise money and awareness for an incredible cause. By jumping in with young college and high school chapters, She’s the First is leading the pack in turning social selling into social giving.

The bake sale has become the staple fundraiser for She’s the First, but any creative campaigns are welcome — think marathon sponsorships, painting parties, birthday donations. All the money raised at fundraisers goes directly to the girls; it costs around $300 to sponsor a girl’s education for a year, including uniforms, food, mentorship, and the awesome support of the organization.

So far, the ladies (and gents!) behind She’s the First have sponsored 615 years of education for girls in 11 underdeveloped countries. There are 289 She’s the First scholars, and they wear their sponsorship like a badge of honor.

If you want to host a fundraiser or donate to She’s the First, check out their site and join the mission. If you’re in school and want to start a chapter, take a peek at their apps below to see what’s in store! Once your plans are in action, put together a Yapp so the She’s the First founders and your community can stay in the loop. Show off what you’re baking and of course, include info about She’s the First.

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Yapper Mondays: A Song, A Dance, A Jig, and some Heart

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Quick Summary

  • Yapp shares a lively, community-driven feature centered on creative and spirited app use cases.
  • The post reinforces the brand’s playful side while showcasing how apps support gatherings and shared interests.
  • Readers looking for fun community inspiration will benefit most from this feature.

This week, we are going to feature some of the Yapps we’ve seen you Tweet about. We love discovering what your are creating using Yapp!

If you’d like your Yapp to be featured on this blog, in press mentions, home page, or in our email newsletters please fill out this brief form: http://bit.ly/RN9R6R

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Megan Arial is an incredibly talented singer and performer who created an app for her upcoming performance at Universal City Walk in Hollywood.  Good luck Megan! Looking forward to watching your career sky rocket. http://my.yapp.us/XGS6KL via @meganashleyA
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DJ Nez, or “El Presidente”, created a Yapp to tell the world where he is spinning.  Listen in at 8pm Friday nights. http://my.yapp.us/DJNEZ via @DJNEZ

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While many of our users are thinking about Hanukah, Christmas, New Year’s and the like, the folks in New Haven are planning ahead for St. Pattie’s Day. Will you have green beer? http://my.yapp.us/2VWGYP via @NHSPDParade

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We were so moved that Shauna created an app to help raise money for her friend Amy who needs a heart transplant.  We are praying they reach their $50k goal (you can help!) and for a speedy recovery for Amy. http://my.yapp.us/AMYSHERALD via @sdotbain

 
 

Yapp for In-Person Engagement: Pearson’s Global English Meeting

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Quick Summary

  • Yapp features Pearson’s Global English use case as an example of in-person engagement supported by a custom app.
  • The story shows how a mobile app can improve communication and attendee experience in a professional setting.
  • Teams planning branded in-person programs or conferences will benefit most from this example.

We were so excited to catch up with Emilie Colker, the Director of Marketing at GlobalEnglish, a Pearson company committed to improve the performance of the global workforce through on-demand Business English development and support solutions.

Last month, Pearson held an internal development event for four companies and 60 guests in Brazil. After seeing a Yapp “out in the wild” at a World Economic Forum conference, and not yet realizing that it was a DIY app, her team was determined to create a similar experience for their own event. They asked her,

‘Can we build this?’ After researching the cost and time dedicated towards building an app from scratch, it was clear that the answer was no, an app could not be built with their available resources and time frame. But through speaking to her colleagues at the World Economic Forum conference, she realized that it was indeed possible – through Yapp!

Emilie loved that her Yapp was perfectly customizable and was easy enough to use that she could pass along the project to another colleague. In fact, her team loved Yapp so much that  they opted for a paperless agenda through the app.

However, what we loved most was the creative uses of the app for onsite, in-person engagement among the conference guests! Guests posted presentation comments and questions as well as photos to the news feed, and the groups also used Yapp to present “polls” to the audience and collect responses in real time. Emilie said that it was amazing to see attendees use their phones for engagement rather than a distraction for a change.

GlobalEnglish plans to use Yapp again for an upcoming conference next month in Thailand. Wish that we were going!

Have another creative idea for using apps to enhance in-person engagement? Let us know here!

Using Yapp for Youth Ministry Events

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Quick Summary

  • Yapp shows how youth ministry events can use an app to organize schedules, updates, and group communication.
  • Centralized information helps leaders and participants stay connected during planning and live events.
  • Churches and faith-based youth groups will benefit most from this use case.

We loved seeing a Yapp for the “More Than a Volunteer” training event. Gavin Richardson explains what the app was used for and suggests Yapp for other youth ministry events on YouthWorker Circuit.

The idea is that average shmos and non-technics should be able to make their own private app, customize it for their event, and invite only those they want to download it to their smartphones.

…you can choose from their template systems and add in your content, dates, times, places, etc. Then you send to your friends/clients/youth so that they can put into their phone via the YappBox app (which is free). As it is designed the updates and added event items update seamlessly via the YappBox app.

Read the rest of “An App for Your Youth Ministry Event” here.

International Leaders Forum Yapp by the National Democratic Institute

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Quick Summary

  • Yapp features the International Leaders Forum as an example of a professional event supported by a mobile app.
  • The story shows how centralized mobile information can improve communication for high-level gatherings.
  • Organizations planning forums, leadership events, or conferences will benefit most from this example.

Francoise Stovall, the Interactive Communications Manager at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) used Yapp for the International Leaders Forum (ILF) that took place in Charlotte, North Carolina last month.

Every four years, NDI hosts diplomats, party leaders and elected officials from around the world— a prestigious group of visitors. This year, the ILF event hosted 300 visitors from 100 countries who were staying in 5 different hotels. The NDI had more than 12 events planned, so as you can image, there were a lot of moving pieces.

Francoise found that Yapp was a huge help in coordinating these moving pieces. “Yapp added a layer of convenience for staff members who needed to communicate information seamlessly to guests,” she said. The app that Francoise created for the forum had the phone numbers of the regional conference coordinators in one place, hotel information, a detailed schedule, addresses of event activities and panelist bios. The forum hosted 8 panels about international and domestic politics with nearly 50 panelists. The Yapp also included media guidelines, cab companies, and information on local restaurants.

The app had the team ready for anything. “We found Yapp to be the perfect solution to building an intuitive in-house app. Yapp helped the Institute look innovative and forward-thinking,” Francoise said.

If you’d like to learn more about NDI you can follow the organization on Twitter or connect on Facebook.

  

A Yapp Event App That We Love: Secret Table

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Quick Summary

  • Yapp shares a creative or playful feature post around a themed use case called Secret Table.
  • The story reinforces the flexibility of apps for niche communities and unique experiences.
  • Readers looking for imaginative app inspiration will benefit most from this feature.
                                    
Shannon Bae stumbled across Yapp through a basic Google search. Shannon knew she wanted to create a mobile app, she just didn’t realize how easy that task would be.
“There are other ways you can create a way more intense version of your own app, but why would you bother? There are so many things to do when you’re planning an event,” Shannon said. “Yapp looks great and the themes are fun. The best part is that Yapp allows you to be creative in a simple way.”

Shannon now creates a Yapp for each Secret Table, an incredible communal dining experience hosted by the catering company she works for, Secret Ingredients.

Secret Table takes place monthly in LA in someone’s home to create an experience that is relaxed and personal. People come together and enjoy a unique dining experience. “You feel like you’re at a friend’s house,” Shannon explains.

           

Yapper of the Month: Naomi Harm

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Quick Summary

  • Yapp spotlights Naomi Harm in its Yapper of the Month series as a real-world user story.
  • The post shows how individuals and communities apply Yapp creatively for their own needs.
  • Readers looking for customer inspiration and practical examples will benefit most from this feature.

Our users never cease to impress us here at Yapp. In fact, they’ve used Yapp in such cool ways that we’ve started a monthly feature where we have a conversation with a user who has an awesome story, and has made an awesome Yapp. This month, we interviewed Naomi Harm, an education expert who trains teachers around the world!

Naomi owns a consulting company through which she teaches educators successful technology integration. She provides instruction for iPad technology, mobile learning tech initiatives and admin tech leadership, among many things.

She helps teachers find robust solutions to help make their jobs easier while, at the same time, making an impact on student learning. With her pupils, she works towards discovering what teachers can do to transform the structural approach to education to make kids more engaged and motivated in the classroom. On this topic, she said, “we know we’re offering quality instructional practices to make immediate change that will impact kids.”

Naomi’s motto is Together we are Better. One individual can’t know it all, but by working together and educating one another, we can create a safe space to learn about and optimize emerging educational technology. Most importantly, Naomi helps teachers learn how to meet the needs of all of their students using technology, keeping in mind that each child has a different way of learning.

She recently used Yapp for the Connected Educator Tech Symposium, where teachers from more than 20 school districts gathered in Wisconsin to explore a transitional approach to teaching. The conference revolved around the idea of collaboration and communication, with the hope that these will lead to immediate feedback from students. There was even a group of students at the conference—the “Student Geek Squad”— that collaborated with and taught the teachers!