A group of UVM students and alumni have developed a new Green Up Vermont smart phone app to help volunteers during Saturday’s annual Green Up Day event.
The free app, developed by Xenon Apps, is designed to give volunteers the opportunity to communicate with each other and monitor the progress of the clean-up effort across the state.
Joshua Dickerson, a UVM senior majoring in Computer Science and Information Systems and a developer with Xenon Apps, says the app will give volunteers the capability to track and map their efforts via mobile phone. Volunteers can flag areas where hazardous materials are found and identify locations where additional help is needed.
“The Green Up App is an opportunity for volunteers to maximize their efforts,” says Dickerson, originally from Brookline, N.H. “We hope that people will feel part of a bigger operation rather than performing a duty more or less alone.”
The Green Up app, available for iOS and mobile web browsers, is a not-for-profit project developed by Xenon Apps for the Green Up Vermont organization, designed to make the annual Green Up Day more efficient and organized, while providing valuable data to help coordinate future Green Up Days.
The app has been in development since the National Civic Day of Hacking hosted by CodeforBTV 11 months ago.
Primarily, there were four participants who helped develop the app, including Dickerson, Anders Melen, Ethan Eldridge, and Phelan Vendeville. Dickerson says they also received help from Colin Dewitt, Paul Kiripolsky, Danielle Steimke, and Evan Yandell. (Eldridge, Vendeville, Yandell, and Dewitt all graduated from UVM last year.)
Dickerson, who will graduate from UVM in May, says this is the first app he has released. “The Green Up app is the first major release by Xenon Apps, but we are continuing to build our portfolio every day, and expect to be releasing a series new and innovative applications by the end of this year” ” he says.
Xenon Apps is a Vermont-based startup and is composed of a small group of individuals who share a love for making web-based applications. The company builds scalable, maintainable, and creative solutions to problems.
The 44th annual Green Up Day Vermont is scheduled for May 3. The Green Up Vermont app is available on iTunes. To learn more, visit greenupvermont.org.
