Rebuilding a Legacy .NET Backend for a Nonprofit Driving Safety Platform
How XodeacTech modernized DriveFocus, an iOS app helping cognitively impaired drivers, after 8 years of technical debt — restoring security, performance, and stability within budget and on schedule.
The challenge we inherited
DriveFocus is a US-based nonprofit organization with a mission-critical iOS application that helps individuals with cognitive impairments — including those affected by stroke, TBI, and dementia — assess and improve their driving safety. The platform had not received a significant backend update in nearly 8 years.
By 2023, the consequences of that delay had become operational blockers. Adobe Flash dependencies were still embedded in the backend workflow, a technology that had been end-of-life since December 2020, creating both security vulnerabilities and broken functionality. The application was running on an outdated .NET Framework version, far behind current releases, with no clear upgrade path documented. Several core features had silently stopped functioning due to dependency rot, bugs that had accumulated invisibly over years without active maintenance. The team had no internal engineering capacity to address these issues and no documentation trail explaining previous architectural decisions.
For a nonprofit whose product directly served vulnerable users, the technical risk was not abstract. Broken functionality meant users could not reliably access safety assessments they depended on.
What we found
What we built
Identified every point where Adobe Flash functionality was embedded in the backend workflow. Replaced each with modern equivalents using current .NET libraries and browser-compatible alternatives, preserving the original behavior without Flash as a dependency.
Upgraded the entire backend to the latest .NET framework version, restructuring the project architecture to follow current conventions, resolving breaking changes introduced across major framework versions, and validating all endpoints post-migration.
Audited the existing AWS configuration, updated security group rules, reviewed IAM permissions, and ensured the deployment environment was stable and appropriately scoped for a nonprofit operating budget.
Jay Monahan specifically noted that XodeacTech's approach to client communication was a defining factor in the project's success. Regular progress updates, proactive clarifying questions rather than assumptions, and early flagging of potential scope risks rather than surfacing them as invoices at the end.
Delivered complete technical documentation of the modernized architecture — something the organization had not had before — so any future engineering engagement would start with context rather than archaeology.
Delivered outcomes
“Without reservation, I recommend XODEAC for projects involving the Microsoft .NET and AWS stacks. Because of XodeacTech's pre-analysis, communication, and knowledge this project has gone smoothly and has met our budget and time requirements.”
Legacy systems don't fail suddenly — they fail slowly, accumulating debt across years of deferred decisions. DriveFocus needed a team that could diagnose the full scope of that debt before quoting a solution, then execute cleanly against it. That pre-analysis discipline — understanding before acting — is how XodeacTech approaches every modernization engagement.
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