On today’s episode, we’re speaking with Kim Allen, Founder and Captain of the Primal Glow Communications mothership. She has a wealth of experience in the nonprofit sector and is now a consultant who works with not-for-profit and public sector organizations to build their digital capacity.

We recently collaborated with Kim on building a private and secure online chat service that is just starting to roll out to sexual assault support centres across Ontario. In our conversation today, we take a deep dive into how she brought this project and team together and what she learned from a very unconventional development process.

Look at what we made!! ~~~~~> Safe Support Chat

Connect with Kim at Primal Glow Communications

See what else we've been working on at Nomadic Labs

What we talked about:

• How she transitioned from public radio to the nonprofit sector to becoming a technology consultant
• How and why we built Safe Support Chat
• Using off-the-shelf software vs building a custom solution
• The value of research and experimentation
• Pitching a project at Civic Tech Toronto and finding “nerdy generosity”
• Connecting with the right people who understand the project and learning from them
• Engaging with volunteers and hackathons
• Reflections on building a open-source software application