Many thanks to Mike Dory for the documentation available below.
“HelpTank is the brainchild of five graduate students at NYU’s ITP program. When asked to do a presentation on assistive technology, they deliberated for days on what they should do. Skits, video projects, parodies – there was no shortage of ideas – but none of which satisfied their urge to help others. They realized that instead of doing a project that would last only 20 minutes, they wanted to build something permanent, something that would reach out to others. HelpTank was thus born.
We believe that obstacles surround us, solutions are abundant, and people generally want to do good. Using a simple website to bridge these ideas, HelpTank aims to show that helping can be easy. Participants are free to submit things that need fixing, ideas of fixes, and stories of good deeds. Our hope is to provide practical assistance and positive inspiration.
The first beta launch looked like this:
HelpTank was created in collaboration with Ji-Sun Lee, Evrim Sahin, Ben Yee, and Ben Chao.
Further development for HelpTank had been put on temporary hold as the five of us finished out the year at ITP, but at the request of an assistive non-profit in the NYC area, further work will resume in the summer of 2007.”