Where Can One Find Computer Related Charity Work?

LS asks: "For a while now, I've been trying to find work that utilizes my programming skills to do more than just help a company win in the market, make me money, and maybe even provide enjoyment. I'd like to contribute to the well-being of humanity and maybe leave a lasting mark as well. I'm working for a start-up that looks like it's about to fold. Can anyone point me to some resources for finding charitable organizations that need computer work, anywhere in the world?" I think that a quite a few of us who wouldn't mind devoting some hackin' time to a good cause. What's the best way to go looking for organizations who need the help? Updated!

Update: 07/15 05:15 PM by C :Miniluv sent in this helpful tidbit on this issue: "In response to the Ask Slashdot article about Charity Work and Technology, I went digging and came up with TechVolunteer. They don't have any searching or volunteer stuff listed yet, but they say the site is under developement. Maybe some encouragement might help them along?"

Comments

Not An Organization

[Seumas]

I seriously believe that the best way that you can help is to find a young man or woman who is desperate to learn. I know that when I was a lot younger, I wanted to do a lot of things in computing that I could neither find the resources nor the mentor for. My library didn't have books on writing PERL or C++ or even PASCAL. I wouldn't even have known that you could get the software for free to do it. Further, I wanted to learn Unix, but when I was 12 (this was in the late 1980's), I knew they were machines that only people in college or at big companies had access to.

More than anything, a lot of teenagers just want to learn. Sure, they can get HTML classes somewhere, but that isn't going to help them become reliably employable.

I'd encourage people to find a highschool dropout (or one who is bordering on becoming one) or a teenage mother or just about any other kid who doesn't realize they have a future -- and whom others may think the same of -- and, if they have a desire to learn it, you can turn them from a life of being a couch potatoe earning 5 bucks an hour at the mini-mart into an upper-middle-class person with a career and a cool job title.

I've seen this done. To a degree, I'm that person -- only I had to help myself. But there are some other very talented and intelligent kids out there who have completely given up. I don't see a better way to offer your time and energy, computer-wise.
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seumas.com

here's one

[Frymaster]

geekcorps is sending a corps of geeks to Africa sometime in the next few months...

VolunteerMatch.org (and Vaya.org!)

[pcarroll]

Our foundation-sponsored, nonprofit site matches volunteers with local opportunities for free. We've already matched over 20,000 people with over 4,000 opps listed under "Computers and Technology", and there are over 20,000 others listed just in case you want to work with something else. Of course, if you want to volunteer to help US (Linux/Apache/JSP/MySQL), that would be great, too. ;) patrick(at)vaya.org