In recent years, modern gains in internet, device and application technologies have led to a worldwide revolution in how people communicate with one another. For humanitarian groups, these innovations in technology increase the potential for reaching a wider audience for both advocacy and aid. However, due to a lack of on-site technologists with domain knowledge and security concerns surrounding the creation of communication platforms for marginalized populations, strides in technology within the humanitarian and social justice space can be slow to adapt key app development innovations. Through research conducted during this project, it was evident that this disconnect between technologists and humanitarian groups can lead to applications that are too insecure to be used by humanitarian groups or cannot properly cater to the populations they are designed for. Our team proposes creating a web application framework specifically for humanitarian workers and social justice advocates. This framework highlights key concerns relating to application design, development and security for individuals looking to develop applications for humanitarian groups. For the project's domain focus, our team concentrates on the problem of resource access inequity faced by the US LGBT+ population, which was inspired by previous project work with the LGBT+ community. The developed framework subsequently led to a proof-of-concept prototype that was designed and developed by consolidating social science research with feedback from members of the US LGBT+ population across the country and cybersecurity developmental best practices. Thus, we show that by leveraging social science research with accepted software development practices, applications can be developed for unique and highly specialized domain problems within the humanitarian space.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Akbar, Sarah
• Walzer, Nathan
• Gurnawan, Veronica E.
• Alvarado, Daniel J.

Subject

• Security
• Computing
• Inclusion

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-040521-235004
• 17071

Keyword

• Application Framework
• App Development
• Advocacy
• Humanitarian
• LGBT+
• Social Justice

Advisor

• Harrison, Lane T.
• DeCarli, Lorenzo

Year

• 2021

Date created

• 2021-04-05

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Computer Science

Rights statement

• In Copyright