Supernova Award Category

The Problem

The Code.org team relies on hundreds of volunteers around the globe (especially engineering folks) to help continue to effectively reach over 100 million students in 180 countries. With so many diverse and distributed teams in multiple time zones, e-mail and simple chat tools lacked the ability to keep communication organized and effective for everyone. In such a fast-paced, ever-evolving industry Code.org also needed a way to retain communication history so new employees/volunteers could jump in at any time and quickly get up to speed. 

The Solution

As the Code.org team added more employees & volunteers, they needed a way to connect everyone. They found HipChat and tested it with their engineering teams. It was a hit and quickly spread throughout the rest of the organization.

They found that the easiest way to coordinate volunteer activity across the globe was to bring everyone into one HipChat room. This enables volunteers to ask questions, allows Code.org employees to answer questions, and gives everyone one central, searchable place to find files, links, and chat history. HipChat works across all platforms, including mobile, so they can stay connected on the go. 

HipChat also integrates with the tools Code.org relies on, including code repository & bug tracking tools so all critical information comes to one place. This all happens while cultivating a fun community with social rooms, custom emoticons, silly GIFs, etc. 

The results

HipChat has allowed every team and every individual at Code.org to connect no matter where they are in the world. Using HipChat, along with other tools that integrate into HipChat, Code.org employees and volunteers can now keep in touch, act quickly, and build a fun culture and community that was not possible without the tool since they are distrbuted all over the globe. 

As Code.org continues to expand and impact the lives of millions of students around the world, HipChat gives them a scalable way to make sure everyone in the organization can connect when it matters most. Code.org's is changing the world,

Metrics

In the past year, HipChat has enabled Code.org to connect hundreds of employees and volunteers around the world so they can stay on the same page and respond to critical issues in a much faster and more efficient way.  

The Technology

HipChat, Confluence, JIRA 

Disruptive Factor

It is always a big change to get everyone at a company on board with a new tool but having the Engineering lead the charge really helped in the adoption process. Starting HipChat on one team and having it organically spread throughout the rest of the organizaiton made the process feel natural and allowed employees/volunteers to discover the benefit themselves rather than be forced to change their processes. 

HipChat sets Code.org apart by allowing their volunteers to feel like part of the family instead of remote workers on the outside. This is game-changing in the nonprofit world. It  It also enables anyone, whether they are tech savvy or not, to communicate together and use the tools that work best for them all under the same roof.  

HipChat (along with tools it integrates with like JIRA and Confluence) gives Code.org a way to scale communication as they continue to grow bigger and bigger. Communication and collaboration problems will never get in the way of them helping millions of students and ultimately changing the world. 

Shining Moment

Code.org is so impactful that it has directly influenced 16 states (and counting!) to change school cirriculum policy to include Computer Science. Code.org has even caught the attention and earned the support and invovlement of influential figures like President Obama and Sheryl Sandberg.