A quiet place to fix small, annoying tech problems together.
Purpose In The Loop started with a simple observation: the people doing meaningful work in Hong Kong — running charities, community projects, arts spaces, mutual aid — are drowning in tiny tech frustrations. Spreadsheets held together with hope. Sign-up forms that break every few weeks. Software with a monthly bill nobody remembers signing up for.
Meanwhile, a lot of tech people we know are tired of writing code to make people click on internet ads. They want to use their skills for something in their own neighbourhood — but the existing options are either huge corporate volunteering programs or one-off hackathons that leave nothing usable behind.
So we made this. It's small on purpose. We only do two things: a monthly Coffee Chat and a Saturday Project. If it can't fit in one Saturday morning, we don't take it on.
The principles
- Plain English, always.
- If a tech volunteer uses a confusing buzzword without explaining it, they put a dollar in the coffee jar. It's a rule and a joke and a discipline.
- Small, finishable projects.
- No six-month engagements. Nothing that requires ongoing paid maintenance. If your team can't run it on Monday morning, we didn't finish the job.
- Free, open, independent.
- Everything we build is open source. We don't take vendor kickbacks, we don't upsell you to paid plans, and we don't resell your data. Ever.
- Listen first.
- Tech people come to hear the real work. Non-profit leaders decide what's worth fixing. Ego stays at the door.
A small volunteer collective in Hong Kong. We're keeping names off the website for the first few meet-ups so the community — not any one founder — is the thing people join.
We don't list big corporate tech logos or professional headshots here because this is a safe space. When you are in the loop, you aren't representing a corporate software giant or a bureaucratic entity — you are just a human helping out a neighbour.
We care about the people you serve.
Before we touch a single file or spreadsheet during our weekend meetups, we make sure your beneficiary data stays completely private, safe, and locked down. No leaks, no risks, no exceptions.
Say hello.
The quickest way to reach us is email. We're a small volunteer collective, so give us a couple of days.
Got a Saturday-sized project in mind?
If you know a local non-profit with a specific tech headache, or you're at one yourself, tell us the shape of the problem in one email. Include what team currently does it, how long it takes, and what tools are already in the mix.
No commitment — we'll write back either way.