FAITHTECH LABS
What are FAITHTECH Labs?
A Volunteer-led Tech Incubator.
Our Labs projects are rooted in our local and global communities. Through local meet-ups and global virtual meet-ups and events, we love seeing people who love tech + Jesus coming together. From community we see great things start to happen. So the best way to get inolved in Labs? It’s to get online with the FaithTech community, locally or globally. Click the button below, or check out our community events here.
As part of the FaithTech community there are great opportunities to steward your skills for God. Through meet-ups, Innovation Sprints, Hackathons, and other events, we bring people together who can solve problems in Jesus’ name. It doesn’t matter if you are a developer, product manager, project lead, marketer, ministry staff, designer, or entrepreneur – there’s a place for you. All you need is some time you’re willing to volunteer, and a passion to see tech leveraged for God’s Kingdom.
When you become part of a Labs Project, we want to get right behind you. We’re building a set of tools, guides, and media to help you move through the Labs seven-step cycle. Not only that, but we are expanding the FaithTech Open Source Tech Stack, which means you get paid-for access to domains, hosting, app-deployment tools, and cloud computing services. The sky is the limit!
With a Labs Project, you get to be a part of two stories. The team and the community you create there; as well as the larger mission of creating tech to help the marginalized, serve the local church, and take the message of Jesus to the world. Check out this story to see what we mean! We team up with church, mission and charity partners from around the world – who are facing big problems. If you want to be part of the solution, click the button to join our labs program.
Who do FAITHTECH Labs Projects Serve?
The Marginalised
Projects that serve those who are pushed to the margins economically, spritually and socially.
Local Church
Projects that serve the Hope of the World through our Church communities.
The Gospel
Projects that serve to get the good news of Jesus to a world that desperately needs to hear it.
Want to find out more?
What Does It Mean To Be Part Of Labs?
If you're interested in partnering with FaithTech or volunteering on a labs project, you'll find all you need know right here!
Labs Partners
What is a Labs Partner?
A Labs partner is anyone who has experienced or seen a problem in their community, city, ministry, mission, charity or church. You have a desire to see tech leveraged by a volunteer team to solve this problem.
You may represent a Church, Mission Organisation, Charity, or you may be a person with a passion to see a particular problem solved in Jesus’ name.
What sort of Problems do you solve?
FaithTech labs projects aim to solve problems for:
- Marginalized Communities.
- The Local Church.
- The spreading of the Gospel.
Many problems touch more than one of these, but we are laser focused on these three areas.
How do I pitch my problem to FaithTech?
We have a range of opportunities for problem pitches:
- Through our regular local community meetups.
- Through direct reach-outs to our Global Labs community.
- Through our local and Global Labs events such as Hackathons and Innovation Sprints.
Through any of these, we have provide opportunities for projects to be pitched to the FaithTech community.
Will our project be picked up?
FaithTech Labs are volunteer-led teams, so we can’t give guarantees that any specific problem or pitch will be picked up.
However, we have a growing community of people who are passionate to steward their skills to glorify God, so the opportunity is great.
What support will FaithTech offer Partners?
Innovation is a great learning opportunity!
We want to see more successful projects, leveraging technology for God’s glory. As part of our Labs Program, we have coaching, pitch exemplars, and engagement opportunities that will help us partner well together, as you walk with the project team through the process of building a solution.
As we build out our tools and labs materials in 2021, we’ll be testing them with our communities, partners and labs volunteers.
What am I committing to?
Our most successful projects have great engagement from our Partners. FaithTech starts in community, and that’s the model we place around our project teams. We want to see relationships built, people learning together, and amazing products built alongside this.
Alongside relationship and community, partners are key in helping teams get through a thorough discovery process, understanding the problem and the way your organisation or community might be able to implement solutions.
I'm in! How do I get involved?
Click below to get started!
Labs Volunteers
What is a labs project?
Labs projects are where groups of people in the FaithTech Community come together to solve problems with tech. These problems are pitched to us by partners, or from right within our FaithTech community.
Getting involved in a project is an opportunity for discipleship with those you’re working with, as well as being a part of kingdom-focused innovation to solve real-world problems.
How do I get involved?
The best way to get involved is to get plugged into the FaithTech community:
- If you’re in a city where FaithTech meet already, you can get involved there. Check out our community map to see if you’re near one.
- Not near a community? Join one of our Global Meet-ups, or fill out our labs on-boarding form below to get connected. Geography is no limitation!
- Our Communities host hackathons and sprints through the year, so you can also get involved in a Labs project through these events. Check our events page for more information.
How does FaithTech support the project?
Our heart, at community and a global level is to equip our labs teams to succeed, and offer an environment where teams can learn and grow together.
Practically the support resources we offer are:
- The 7-step Labs Program – this is a collection of coaching, videos and materials which bring together our heart for discipleship and the best product development techniques Labs projects have used. This is being piloted during 2021.
- A growing community of Mentors – amazing people across tech, business and ministry. They are there to help and advise your team as you move through the development cycle.
- A funded tech stack – as your project gains traction, so will a need for a stack to support it. We will provide access to the resources you need (within our budget) to get your project to MVP.
- Online community: we have a lively slack community, where you can grab your own channel, get products tested, and tell the FaithTech world about your project! We also have “always open” virtual meeting spaces for you to use as a team when meeting in-person is not possible.
What do you mean by discipleship?
We do not see the Faith and Tech elements as separate. Each step of our labs program is founded on scripture, yet accessible for non-Christians who want to be part of something special.
We will explore our calling as disciples as we build kingdom-focussed products.
What am I committing to?
There are two main models for labs projects that you can get involved in:
- Time Limited: these are event-type projects, which you will find through Hackathons, Innovation Sprint or 3-month accelerators. Here you know exactly when your involvement will end!
- Community-Based: each of our communities has a number of projects, with passionate volunteers who want to see them progress, sometimes through several MVP iterations. However, involvement levels are up to each volunteer – you get to decide.
Whether you commit to a 2 day hackathon, a 4 week Sprint, or spend 1 year with a community project team, you can know that you are contributing to kingdom tech innovation.
I'm not in tech, can I play?
Absolutely, this program is for people across tech, ministry, business, and charity. If you’re passionate to help design solutions to real-world problems, there’s a place for you.
Each team ideally has a mixture of skills to bring balance and momentum. This will often include a mix of developers, researchers, a project manager, and a designer.
What are my next steps?
Volunteer in Labs Today
“FaithTech Labs exists to assist tech pioneers in developing their ideas and to support them with resources and experienced mentors. We also help existing organizations from discovery to launch or anywhere in between.“
James Kelly – Founder and CEO
