A couple of weeks ago NPR ran a segment entitled, A New Generation of App Developers, discussing the emergence of creative and youthful app developers. This story chronicled a middle school student who built an app to help him stay organized in the coming year and the revelation that more and more young people are developing their own creative solutions to problems.

Not only did the piece showcase the uniqueness of this particular student, but also the opportunity to cultivate creativity through technical awareness and skills development in children, teens, and young adults.

A woman stops in a BART subway station in San Francisco to send a text from her phone. But she's not telling her friends she'll be late for happy hour. By sending a text to a location-based app, she's trying to save the Earth.

Through this "check-in" on Foursquare, that woman is making a donation to EarthJustice, an environmental law organization. This is one of the many ways that nonprofits are taking advantage of a new generation of applications that utilize physical location information to tie together the online and offline worlds. Location-based apps use GPS or other physical location information to map and keep track of users interacting with the service.

In my companion blog post on Why Apps Are Green, I talked about how apps permit the use of lighter IT infrastructure like mobile phones to accomplish things we previously used to do just on PCs. Mobile phones use much less electricity than PCs, and another benefit is that they make Internet and IT readily available in developing countries.

Another way that apps can be green is because some of them do environmental things. There's a surprising array of them actually. Planet Green's 7 Best Green Apps for Mobile Phones are a good example.

This post was authored by Ariel Gilbert-Knight, Technology Analyst for TechSoup, and originally appeared on The TechSoup Blog.

I'm very excited to introduce a new Microsoft-funded project we're working on here at TechSoup, called "App It Up." Apps can be very helpful tools: they can help engage and inform constituents, tell your organization's story, and improve your internal workflows. However, many nonprofits and libraries aren't using apps, for various reasons. The App It Up project is here to help, by identifying - and even creating - apps specifically for nonprofits and libraries.

Hi everyone, I Martyn, 27 years old, have been blogging 2 years on my experiences as a wheelchair user with 24.7 care and now self employed.

My blog www.martynsibley.com, online magazine www.disabilityhorizons.com, disability webinar series and planned e-courses will provide disabled people with the inspiration and information to grab life. It all also adds an educational tool for the world to see disabled people in an inclusive and achieving light.

Checkout the video from my online learning page...

I am cruising along ok with the technology for now. I am however keen to commission an app or 10 for disabled people, especially to use on i pad.

The following has been cross-posted from the TechSoup for Libraries Blog:

Are you interested in developing mobile applications for social benefit? The Applications for Good website is a space for people to suggest ideas for apps, identify funding, and collaborate on project development. Produced by the Social Innovation Lab (SIL) of One Economy Corporation, Applications for Good is an excellent place to match an application need with a solution, and provide visibility for the project once it's complete.  

On Applications for Good site you’ll find:

Ben Rigby and Jacob Colker, our BFFs over at The Extraordinaries, very recently won $25,000 at the WeMedia Pitch It Competition.