ThoughtWorks Helps Drive Over A$30 Million in Queensland Flood Relief Donations with Ruby App Running on Heroku

Global IT consulting firm, ThoughtWorks raised AU$2 million in donations for victims of Cyclone Yasi in Southern and Central Queensland, Australia. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) June 23, 2011 - SAN FRANCISCO, USA and SYDNEY, Australia -- A large part of Southern and Central Queensland, Australia was hit with Cyclone Yasi and a series of severe floods in December 2010 which displaced over 200,000 area residents. Global IT consulting firm, ThoughtWorks, assisted in raising funds for the recovery efforts by developing and deploying the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal online donation web application to collect more than AU$2 million in donations during a three-day national telethon, Flood Relief Appeal: Australia Unites on January 9, 2011.

The online donation web application has generated more than AU$38 million in donations. With a simple interface, and low cost access to virtually limitless scaling to meet heavy demand, award-winning Herokuwas selected for its fast web application development and deployment.

Australia's Smart Service Queensland (SSQ) had initially looked to use its existing donation web application for collecting relief aid. However, the existing application was intended for use on a smaller scale and officials were unsure how well it would perform under on a national level. Julian Oliver, ThoughtWorks Australia Market Principal, offered assistance to the SSQ and enlisted the help of six ThoughtWorkers to develop the Heroku-based web application probono.

Much of the development work for the web app uses Ruby-on-Rails' open source web application framework and was deployed on Heroku. By using Heroku, ThoughtWorks' development team quickly addressed the technical challenges of the project, from strong security to addressing high traffic needs, ultimately enabling the ThoughtWorks team to successfully develop and deploy the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal web application within just 48 hours.

ThoughtWorks'Lead Developer Leonardo Borges Barbosa said, "For us, this project was about helping people in need, but it was also a confirmation of what can be achieved with Ruby on Rails and the cloud. For SSQ, they now have a whole new view of how agile technologies can help them serve their public at a higher level."

Heroku VP of Sales Mike Pyle said "the ThoughtWorks development team did something really amazing here for the people of Queensland. We're thrilled that they looked to Heroku as the right place to deploy this important web application in the face of disaster."

To view the web application or to donate funds to aid relief efforts go to: https://telethon.smartservice.qld.gov.au/donations/index

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