European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and European Parliament President Antonio Tajani are leading the 30th anniversary celebrations for the Erasmus program at the European Parliament in Strasbourg today. To mark the occasion, the Commission is also launching a new Erasmus+ mobile application. Designed for students, vocational learners and participants in youth exchanges, the app will make young people's Erasmus+ experience easier.

Oxfam, one of the UK’s biggest charities, plans to harness the power of the smartphone to bring donors closer to its work. The global poverty reduction charity is launching an app, My Oxfam, that it says will make donating easy and rewarding. The app will also bring supporters closer to the charity’s projects, offer a new level of transparency around its work, and aims to help regain donors’ trust.

Last week's United Nations General Assembly made headlines for a new plan to double the number of refugees allowed into its member nations and to expand aid. But while politicians were making bold speeches about a proposal that may or may not be enforced, the first ever United Nations Creative Director was quietly introducing delegates to the new media technology that is changing how the 71-year-old institution makes decisions.

Nearly a decade later, the 24-year-old is bringing her idea to life through a program in Senegal that encourages young women in coding and technology. She is developing a mobile phone application that will allow teachers, parents and students to swap books and supplies. It's called WECCIO, or "exchange" in the local Wolof language.

As students in an innovative Pardee School of Global Studies course last spring on the challenges of forced migration learned, sometimes even the most overwhelming situations can be improved by simple, but powerful solutions. In what became a semester-long exercise leading to the creation of a smartphone app for Syrian refugees in Jordan. 

Swiping right or tapping on a mobile phone are not typical ways of helping poor communities, but a new app launched by a medical charity on Friday aims to use technology to help aid workers map areas at risk of conflict, disasters and disease. Using the latest in mobile gaming technology, MapSwipe lets users map remote, rural regions vulnerable to humanitarian crises.

While working for a Turkish tech firm, Akil learned how to program for mobile phones, and decided to make a smartphone app to help Syrians get all the information they need to build new lives in Turkey. In early 2014, he and a friend launched Gherbtna, named for an Arabic word referring to the loneliness of foreign exile. [...] “Our ultimate dream for Gherbtna is to reach all refugees around the world, and help them.”