Letter from our CEO

As we begin our 30^th year, one of the accomplishments I’m proudest of is our ability to engage with communities around the world to help people in need. More than anything else, it makes the last three decades feel like we’ve really succeeded.

To expand our commitment to the cities where we live and work, Rocket created Rocket.Build Community, a series of hackathons that give college students an opportunity to collaborate with Rocketeers to solve local problems including homelessness, transportation, and education.

In the last month we have hosted six events where teams worked with local nonprofits to build solutions to support meaningful causes. And the results have been incredible!

• In Boston, more than 90 students from seven schools worked on 14 projects competing in categories including Best Housing Hack, Best Transportation and Mobility Hack and Best Rising Water Impact Hack.
• In Dalian, our team helped the Long Wang Tang Residential Community upgrade its information management system to better serve 4,000+ residents. In just two days, nine students from the Dalian University of Technology and the Dalian Jiaotong University collaborated with community workers to create a prototype for an online residential information management system.
• In Denver, students helped the Augustana Early Learning Center (AELC) make quality care and education for preschoolers more accessible. With the help of Galvanize, a local coding academy, participants built a new, dedicated site that will bring awareness to the center’s services.
• In San Jose, Rocketeers teamed up with 42 students from San Jose State University to address homelessness in the Bay Area. There were 13 projects in total.  
• In Bengaluru, 33 students from the M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technologies (MSRIT) participated in seven projects that assisted the Karnataka State Police Department.
• In Pune, 20 students from iSquareIT and Cummins worked on four projects for Anandwan, a non-profit organization  that empowers those around the Maharashtra state with self-employment. The teams developed software solutions for Anandwan’s inventory management and visitor tracking system.
• With the help of instructors from the Austin Coding Academy, 40 students in Austin produced 10 new apps for CarePortal, which will help connect underserved children and families to local community organizations in real time.

Check out what Joe Sacco had to say about Rocket.Build Community in Forbes.

Our partners were also essential participants in the events. From a school for women in engineering to  local coding academies and student-run associations, they contributed valuable time and expertise to the projects in each city. Rocket is incredibly grateful for their support. We are also proud of the Rocketeers who made Rocket.Build Community such a success. And, of course, we were really impressed with the 200+ students who made this all possible with their incredible ideas and perspectives. We’re looking forward to continuing – and expanding – this program in 2020 and beyond.

Andrew J. Youniss
President and CEO, Rocket Software, Inc.