Nerdery 2012 Overnight Website Challenge

Posted By: DAN, Posted In: Development, at: 2015-03-03 22:47:28 EST.

Back in 2012, I participated in an amazing event in Chicago organized by The Nerdery called the Overnight Website Challenge. The event has a single goal: providing free web development services to non-profit organizations. It's really a brilliant scheme for skilled professionals to give back to people in their own way. It's also a great way to test yourself, put your skills on the line, and see what you and a team of people can accomplish in a single day.

I found a team that looked like they might need what I could bring to the table. I was fresh out of Chippewa Valley Tech with an IT Programmer/Analyst degree, and up to the challenge. After researching some of the potential non-profit clients, I realized that most of them were looking for a Wordpress-based site. I did a lot of brushing up at that time, and learned the basics of how it worked. Explaining the structure assisting with the site architecture through that my basic knowledge of wordpress was probably the largest contribution I made.

The non-profit company we were assigned was called the North Lawndale Employment Network. They still use the base website that we designed and developed for them.

I fought valiantly against sleep and PHP, but I learned a valuable lessons about time mangement and development in general. All in all, it was a positive experience that motivated me to be a better developer.