RESEARCH-INFORMED. NOT YET FIELD-VALIDATED.
Why repair the plan?
ReadyTogether tests a focused hypothesis: making constraints and access-related tasks explicit can help a community organizer respond to a cancellation without silently dropping commitments. Published research supports the broader coordination problem. It does not prove this prototype’s effectiveness or originality.
| Evidence | Design response | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| DCMS, Digital tools that support volunteering (2025) used a market review and 39 qualitative interviews. It identifies fragmented tools, interoperability problems, and limited organizational capacity. | One persisted event shared by the web interface and MCP tools; visible audit and explicit review. | England-focused qualitative findings; not a measured reduction in coordination time for ReadyTogether. Existing volunteer software already exists. |
| NCVO, Time Well Spent (2023), section 7 reports that flexible time commitments (30%) and flexibility in how time is given (26%) could encourage people who had not volunteered in the previous three years or ever. | Respect each volunteer’s availability window and require separate acceptance for changed assignments. | Great Britain survey context; percentages concern encouragement to volunteer, not cancellation rates or proof that AI helps. |
| ADA National Network, temporary-event planning guide (2015) covers early planning, accessible routes, communication, and preparing staff and volunteers. | Keep access commitments visible during repair and show their explicit sources. | A three-task demo cannot verify venue accessibility, staff training, food safety, or legal compliance. |
What the prototype demonstrates
A deterministic bounded planner checks skills, complete time windows, task duration, a 15-minute handoff buffer, and modeled supply prices. It proposes alternatives, explains infeasibility, checks for stale approvals, and distinguishes organizer approval from a simulated volunteer response. Synthetic borrowed inventory and prices are examples, not live offers or purchases.
What remains to validate
No organizer interviews, usability study, time-saving measurement, or real-world accessibility evaluation has been conducted for this project. A future pilot should compare manual coordination and ReadyTogether on the same disruption tasks, measuring time to a feasible plan, constraint violations, missed access commitments, and volunteer understanding. Include organizers and volunteers with varied access needs, obtain consent, and report failures as well as successes.
References retrieved October 21, 2026. Links provide attribution; third-party reports and graphics are not bundled. Research references supplement the hackathon problem rationale; they are not a required submission attachment.