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Donating Time To Goodwill Projects?
jukal asks: "I am in the process of writing a proposal for co-operation between Openchallenge and UNITeS (United Nations Information Technology Service) which is 'creating a global volunteer programme aimed at bridging the digital divide between industrialized and developing countries'. Currently & traditionally contributing as a volunteer means relocating yourself to the developing country to take part as a project developer/manager/specialist. My proposal to UNITeS is, in short, will be that people could participate in such software projects via Openchallenge - while staying in their home country, on their spare-time and while keeping their jobs. The local team in the developing country would, after defining and creating requirements specifications post sub-projects as tasks to Openchallenge. All the contributions submitted to Openchallenge are published under an open source license. My question is: would you for example consider donating some hours to help a goodwill project - if you could do that from home. This is of interest to me, as I would like to be sure that the time we put into building co-operating with a big organization like UNITeS and others in the future. Is not wasted. There is this thread about 'Volunteer Work Abroad' - which is good reading related to the subject. But it did not quite provide me with the answer."
I'm curious to see how this goes, I'm working on somewhat similar software. To answer the question, I personally would help if I truly backed the cause.
we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively - bill hicks
Donating geek time to charity is something that I have been pondering for quite a while... if I decide to write a piece of software for my favorite church, can I deduct the fair market value of that software on my taxes? Likewise, were people to contribute to an OpenChallenge project, would they be able to similary write-off the fair market value of that time?
This situation brought itself to bear a few years ago, when I learned that a friend of mine was donating not only his time, but also hard $$$ for server space for his favorite charity. What, if anything would he be able to write-off? He uses the server for other projects, so not 100% is for the charity.
Any accountant-geeks out there?
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WWJD? JWRTFM!
We have found that the various city, county, and private organizations are willing to bend over backwards to work with us. Bear in mind, I am not talking about a purely altruistic venture on my own firm's part, but rather a joint venture between a private company and the community, with profits being used to further develop technology-specific public works in the region.
People have already proven at least a passive willingness with distributed computing projects. The next obvious step is to donate a little non-profit coding. Plus, this works well as an adjunct to computer recycling programs that benefit "Third Worlds".
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
While I appreciate your noble intentions, I'm not 100% sure how software development would help most 3rd world and developing nations. Unless, I've really been living under a rock, most of the people in such nations who would benefit from such are high up the power ladder and have little to no interest in distributing down the ladder.
Besides, wouldn't one have to focus on developing the infrstructure to run said software anyway. Last time I checked, running software needs computers. Computers need power, connectivity, and even sometimes access to this Internet thingy. If I wanted to lead a project to help developing nations, I'd be much more interested in building telecommunications and electrical infrastrucutre then writing software they probably can't run or use for much good yet anyway.
While your idea is noble, I think perhaps it is a little too soon to be really globaly useful?
I saw the European Registrar story disappear too - all the more reason it would be nice to know who is moderating if it's an editor - look at all these offtopic posts (like mine :).
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
My question is: would you for example consider donating some hours to help a goodwill project - if you could do that from home.
Yes.
My favorite odd todd line.
And the fact that I seriously considered volunteering, made me feel better
about not..volunteering.
I try to donate my time to different orgs around my comunity but I've been finding time really scarce lately. If there were a system like the one you described, if there isnt one already, I think I would be more inclined to do that then just some stupid widget that I have dreamed up over the last few days.
I tend to work on things for other people much more attentively then stuff I do just for the hell of it.
If I were only smart enough to accomplish the things I dream about.. Or maybe too dumb to care.
Neat idea, but IMHO timing is everything. I'm thinking that this might be in retaliation to yesterday's report of a Congressman trying to "outlaw" the GPL.
"Careful! We don't want to learn from this!" -Calvin & Hobbes
I've already approached several left wing think tanks and offered them volounteer techtime.
I would imagine that helping folks in developing nations would pique my humanitarian interests as well.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Check it out... do something like these folks, except in your city.
only infrmatn esentil to understandn mst b tranmitd
Why must all charity projects go to the lowest possible denominator? If folks have spare time that they want to donate, how about helping out in your own backyard first?
It's arguably a noble notion, donating your time to those who have less. But how many of these have-not people and groups are in countries with backward or malevolent political and economic systems? Why should we all join a project to help [INSERT DICTATORIAL REGIME HERE]?
I'd much rather give 5 USD to a local charity or even a street person, than to donate time to helping [INSERT PUBLIC "SERVICE" GROUP HERE] in another country. Where's the benefit in that, compared to helping out with local problems?
Or is this another one of those Soviet-era things - "at least everyone is equally shabby" ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
http://www.blowthedotoutyourass.com
...without leaving your neighborhood, let alone country.
Go to your local library or school or community college and offer to teach free courses or help with the IT infrastructure. Be a guru for some programmer-to-be!
I used to teach at an adult education centre which was free to students (though I did get paid, so I don't claim to be a humanitarian of unequal pedigree here). It was extremely rewarding and I learned a lot as well.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
I think that in general it would be better to localize charity activities. Not to say that someone in France shouldn't donate time and energy to someone in Finnland but I have serious questions on the validity of the UN's organizational units. We can argue the whole "Globalization" issues with this. I hear man organizations already doing charity work on donating CPUs with Linux and stuff to emerging worlds but honestly, who needs a PC if your starving to death. My personal feelings are in a world with limited resources we need to have priorities in charitable work:
1: Basic Needs (Food, Clothing, Shelter)
2: Self Sufficency (Ability to make\get you own Food, Clothing, and shelter. Watch the Movie Soilent Green, or read the book why this is imporant)
3: Advancement of Society Standard (Literacy, Freedom, Education)
4: Wants, Computers, Cars, Leather Jackets and Blue Jeans.
Emergine nations need to have a solid foundation and bridging the Digital Divide seems pretty damn low on the ilst of priorities if I am starving and have polluted water to drink. I think we can hold of on donating the limited dollars there are to charity and set more, I wouldn't say appropriate goal (I like the idea of briding the digital divide), but more pressing needs. It would be far better for the natives of these emergine nations to be able to afford buying a computer versus getting one for free. Even better yet to have an industry where they can make and compete in computer production.
I think that UNITES needs to focus more on developing industies, markets, and agricultural areas before worrying about poor people having email. The idea that they want to Bridge the Digital Divide seems oddly out of place when you apply it to nations that have people starving and dying of terrible diseases. There are limited charity dollars in the world and we need to take a hard look at where they go and how they are spent and I just don't see this as a project that needs the money. The Peace Corp. seems to be the best bang for the charitable dollar. I hope this post sparks some discussion on which charities do the most good with the dollars they get. Good luck to UNITES and friends.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I'm in my first year as a Tech Corps volunteer in Ohio. I basically donate two afternoons a month to a public school district in town to assist teachers with technology projects in the school. We'll be working on re-designing the high school's Web presence and we'll also be conducting a lesson with French students to make fictional travel Web sites of French travel desinations.
In my opinion, you can't beat the gratification that comes from doing something like this. I get the opportunity to lend my expertise to an inner-city school district that could greatly use it. Definitely a win-win. I can't encourage this enough.
-- jimmycarter
I am so sick of these posts to Ask /. that can be answered by a Google search! Couldn't you come up with a query that would locate all the philanthropically minded hackers pining to make a contribution to the developing world on their home pages and Web logs? ;-)
Seriously: I'd be interested! Just like the Peace Corps without the tropical fevers!
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
I'm totally up for doing volunteer work, as long as it pays well.
come on fhqwhgads
This program has all the signs of being a typical United Nations money/time rathole. If anyone here has some personal experience with this group, please feel free to correct me.
Go work on some elderly person's house...do meals on wheels, or best of all start a computer job skills training program with your local government.It's been my experience that I can't save the world, but I can make a huge difference in a small people's lives.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
You can find the article here:l ?tid=95
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/02/10/24/1659231.shtm
-- This Sig is currently under construction
Sounds like a concept similar to this.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
What happened to this article in YRO?
/ 16 59231&mode=flat&tid=95&threshold=2
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/24
It says "nothing to see here". Why was that article removed?
~ Detonating a nuclear device within the city limits will result in a 500 dollar fine.
Or to stop the dictators and revolutionaries from starving the people and destroying what little infrastructure they had in the country before war broke out and caused mass famine and starvation.
Many of the starving people are the victims of war, poverty (due to war or bad markets collapsing), natural disasters, or disease. Those developing countries are fragile enough by themselves, without having war break out or something else tragic happening.
I have spent over $100,000 on my education which I payed for entirely out of my pocket. I have spent untold hours networking with mutant bozos who I normally wouldn't give the time of day to in order to help my business. I spend about 15% of my time learning new methodologies and honing my skills on a weekly basis to maintain my cutting edge portfolio.
With that in mind would anyone care to tell me why I should then turn around and offer up my services at no charge to some lazy organization that is unable to pull itself up by it's own bootstraps and support paying money for quality coders? Nobody offers me chaity in the real world and I don't offer any in return.
This smells like some underworld socialist program if you ask me.
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
When you think about it. It could also be very benifical to companies that supported it. Especailly corps who have not yet done anything open source. Anyone agree/disagree with me? -geek
I love this idea but I am a little skeptical.
I've worked on enough volunteer projects to realize that most volunteers are people that have too much time on their hands. They've just moved to a new city, are between jobs, broke up with their significant other, etc. There is nothing wrong with this other than that all these situations are extremely temporary. As soon as the other parts of their lives start back up, the desire to volunteer disappears.
This a huge pain for the organization as they have devoted time and resources to orient and train these very short term volunteers.
Your proposal is even more likely to suffer from this as volunteers who never meet the people they are helping will feel even less obligation to the people them. You need to find some way to secure a time commitment from you volunteers and work very hard to make them feel connected to the work, otherwise the turnover will kill you.
Yeah. The technology industry isn't doing anything for India. Its not like they're attempting to convert their workforce into the majority of the Computer Science industry for the world.
Oh wait. THAT'S EXACTLY what they're trying to do.
They have little resources other than human resources, like a lot of third world countries (not all of India can be considered 3rd world, but most of it can). They are not alone in this idea. If you consider that the world itself is a national economy, and that human resources are also resources (just as an infrastructure is) then you can see that this can help 3rd world countries. If they don't have the infrastructure they need, that can be imported (or the people can be temporarily exported) to deal with that problem.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I donated time to volunteer work at a then local high school - I have since moved - teaching students in project oriented programming competition formerly called the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge (now called the Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge when they rolled it and the Sandia NL sponsored rival program together).
Students were brogutht ogether in small teams and taught programming, often from the ground up, math, and science towards a project. Often a lot of backfilling took place to get the students up to the point where they could understand the math and science behind the project as well as actually grasp what it would take to write code for the supercomputers. It was very challenging and a lot of fun.
It has always perplexed me when we have people so constantly complaining about the school system that those that have the time and energy to volunteer do not simply go down to their local school system and volunteer. Make an appointment with the principal and see where you can help. I betcha he or she will be very ecstatic if you can bring ideas and time to the table so long as it does not tax the school resource wise (budgets being tight things...)
The rewards of seeing a student's face light up when they get it are well worth the time...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Will I get to meet Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge Stuart? How about The Doctor? If so... I'm there!
...I must wiegh in on the side of posters who have mentioned starting in our own backyard. As a father of two, I am quite concerned, for example, about public schools and technology resources. Even in affluent areas, the resources available are poor, I can only imagine the need in the inner city.
I have little free time, but would love to donate IT skills to local organizations aimed at improving the education level of our children. Before the obligatory 'check Google' responses, note that I did, but was overwhelmed by the 265,000+ 'hits' no matter how I narrowed my search.
Ideas like yours are valid. I imagine that far more people would volunteer, if it were simply easier to do so. Being able to volunteer within your own area of interest would draw out even more of these 'closet' volunteers!
I hope you keep at it.
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
Have you tried posting a comment about it? Very strange happenings indeed.
"Snow is actually from the ghetto in Toronto where he was white and whithout a good pair of shoes."
lol.
What software do the folks in the underdeveloped countries really need? I mean what specific software, that is not already written? Perhaps what is already around is sufficient? Just wondering.
I'd dedicate my time at work! I already spend most of it on Slashdot ;-)
The good thing about the knowlege industry is that not only can you telecommute. It's the fact that you can share the knowlege and be richer for it.
Beyond just giving them the source, you've got to make sure that you make every effort to make the recipients of your aid part of the team in the cathedral or at least feeling like they're part of the bazaar.
There's nothing worse than sending in aid that makes the person wind up with this big shiny thing that they don't have the resources to maintain or expand on.
So yeah. Clean water first. Food second. No war third. Good medicine, industrial infrastructure, a reliable democratic and open government... and then technology that the developing country can really feel that they own, rather than that they adopted because they found it or someone gave it to them.
I would consider donating some free time as long as I DIDN'T have to do it from home.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
It seems to me that while potentially useful, your idea of passing out sub-projects from software companies or IT teams in developing nations to a group of open source coders in the Western world doesn't really advance the goal of the UN initiative. As another poster mentioned, there are more serious problems to overcome in many developing nations that make "bridging the digital divide" realtively meaningless. I believe someone else pointed out that what these nations really need isn't code, but IT infrastructure.
Those are valid points, but I think the fundamental idea of the UN program is to provide technology experts who can not only assist in local projects, but also transfer their expertise through the course of working on those projects. A group of US/UK/GER/FRA/etc coders whipping out brilliant and useful code for sub-projects is certainly helpful, but it doesn't go very far in creating a communal working environment wherein the presumably more experienced techs volunteering can pass their knowledge and experience on to the local techs. Sure, the locals can read your brilliant source code, but they don't get to participate in the development of that code necessarily, and having their questions answered via email is nowhere near as positive a learning environment as working on the code with a real person next to them who can answer their questions and point out interesting tidbits on the fly.
The real digital divide is knowledge based, and the best way to close that gap is to teach someone how to do it themselves, not tell them to send the hard parts to someone else to do for them.
Of course that's just my opinion, and I'm probably wrong
Unfortunately, what happens is that the very top people there end up leaving India and coming to the US, where the work is. That country produces some of the greatest technological minds in the world (law of averages suggests this; their population is 4 times the size of the U.S.), yet can't hold onto them.
Infrastructure investment should most likely come first...
I can't believe it's not lard!
> "the digital divide between industrialized and developing countries"
Why don't we work on the food and health divides first?
I mean does some kid who's not sure if he's dying of AIDS or hunger really care about this inane bullshit?
Anyone with the skills to do something like this is going to be a professional programmer. They just don't have the time to work on projects that offer no chance for monetary reward.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Although i don't quite get how volunteering outside of your country is "lowest common denominator" i do agree that there are lots of opportunities to volunteer at home. There are lots of local community technology groups that do work around issues like bringing open source to the community like . Others like digitaldividenetwork/benton do work around bridging the digital divide. There are groups for people who want to volunteer tech services for schools and nonprofits like CompuMentor. And we can't forget the work that local User Groups have done for schools, nonprofits, and individuals over the years.
Although techie volunteer programs abroad are wonderful experiences (i've been fortunate to do community technology work in S. Africa and China), you don't have to travel thousands of miles away to do some tech good.
*EXACTLY*. Any venture that claims to be of benefit to the "needy" should make sure that it provides the tools and education to empower the community in which they are working; otherwise, you end up with a community that is now *more reliant* on outside sources to work with the technology/software/whatever that you have provided.
I would liken giving a Zambian village a network of PCs without training them how to use and maintain them to teaching schoolchilren how to read a book, but without teaching them anything about semantics, grammar, etc... in other words, worthless.
Anyone notice that for the last openchallenge there were only two entries in three months? How is this local team going to be able to effectively use their own time when they can't count on the work they have "delegated" abroad being completed? Timing of component completion is essential when implementing a large project.
...we will come. Free Software is basically a "help your fellow man" kind of project, so it won't be very hard to find volunteers. However, as others have hinted, the real chore will be finding a task that can be solved by software that will benefit people without computers.
I've helped out with a few foodbanks have always been shocked at how incredibly primitive their distribution systems are. They have to have nearly prohibitive amounts of notice to get the orders for the right amounts of items correctly taken care of up-line. Locally there are no computers involved in this at all. A hand totaled list is read over the phone to a person who plugs it into a spreadsheet. AAAAAAAck! This is a job that screams, "Automate me." The people involved drool at the opportunity to place their orders less than a month in advance and to get rid of the paperwork, but setting up the infrastructure is most of the problem and actually writing the order submission app is pretty easy. In this case and so many others that I can imagine the majority of the work will be done on the scene. But for the fraction that doesn't have to to be done there, start some sourceforge projects and ask for volunteers. You'll find'em.
if he can't READ that they are already doing this:
http://www.unites.org/html/unites/faq.htm#online
http://www.netaid.org/OV/
http://www.unites.org/html/news/n220502.htm
How's the saying go?
:)
If you give people a fish, they eat for a day. If you teach people to fish, they eat for a lifetime.
If you teach a community how to use/manipulate technology, they become better equipped to get employment. So you've given them #2: Self Sufficiency. By getting jobs using the technology you've taught them, they can take care of #1: Basic Needs. Once they have work, they can worry less about #1 and start concentrating on things like educating their children and participating in the political process (#3). And one day, when they're good little consumers like the rest of us, they'll be able to waste their time keeping up with the Joneses (#4)
I find that volunteering time on a worthwhile project is very rewarding. The process of reaching out and helping people is beneficial to my own well being. Even though I paid my way, I consider that I got more out of my mission trip to Latvia than I gave. Volunteering locally has also been very rewarding to me. I believe when we give we benefit. That is just the way we are built.
When are donated services to a non-profit organization recognized?
(S)pecialized skills are required and possessed by the donor.
(O)therwise needed by the orgnization
(M)easurable
(E)asily
You can remember this by the mnemonic "Some." (Directly out of the Becker Conviser CPA exam review).
Assuming the orgization you donate to is "qualified," you must also observe the "charitable contributions limitation" under the tax code:
Overall limit = 50% Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)
1) Cash - may be all 50%
2) Property - is limited to the lessor of:
a) 30% of AGI
b) The remaining amount to reach 50% after cash contributions
Notice this says nothing of "donated service." I guess you could treat the FMV of the service as "Property." However, I think you would have to go through old tax court cases to see how you should really go about deducting donated services.
Disclaimer: I am in no way an accountant . . . yet.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I hate you so much right now, it's not even funny.
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
It will only mean the utter and complete destruction of not only the American programmer, but the Western programmer. We already have people outsourcing my job to India/Pakistan/Singapore/etc, and now you want to ADD to that list? I already AM out of work, I don't need to be out of work indefinitely.
No thanks. Feed/clothe/house them first. We don't need to create more competition. Do you want it to degrade to the point where there are 12-yr olds working in coding sweatshops, too?
but has it ever occured to you that your properties of hard work and endurance which have given you the lifestyle that you enjoy wouldn't mean squat if your country dissolved into a bloody civil war?
You are the master of your own destiny for now, only because there are many people in your country who would die to preserve the free and open system which supports your market.
Take that away and life becomes a lottery. It won't matter if you are an elite business person or a crack guerilla sniper- in times of civil disorder people suffer, and suffer, and suffer no matter how hard they try. And I don't mean having to do something mildly degrading like sit around with objectionable people who are richer than you. I mean being so hungry that people can count your ribs and knowing that your high IQ can't turn stone into bread unless those people in the hills stop shooting long enough to plant a lousy vegetable patch. Even the people who are ostensibly in control of the whole war find themselves locked into the conflict and unable to see a way out that doesn't get them killed.
In afghanistan, there used to be kabul university (est 1932 by some french and turkish guys) complete with schools of medicine, pharmacy, economics etc... Then the taliban sent the country back to the stone age, with the exception of a pile of the imported tanks. What happened to all the educated, hard working people? they had crap lives and then died. Some of them wound up in other countries, where their hard work and life savings bought them a cell in a processing camp.
Anyway, bottom line: if you really feel bad about donating your time to help people like yourself except that they suddenly woke up one day to find out that terrorists had killed their government, just consider openchallenge as a competition instead. It says so on the website linked in the main article. Here's a list of winners and the cool stuff they won demonstrating how elite they were.
Wouldn't you like to have another feather in your cap? Another free GPS module to show off to your friends?
And if one day you were to find out that your country had dissolved into war or your economy had imploded into a gooey mess of corruption, wouldn't you be comforted by the hope that somewhere out there there might be smart, talented people who care about other human beings in real dire straits and for whatever reason use their powers and skills to help.
Computers don't grow food very well (but in the Matrix they could!) and all the computer information won't do them much good when it comes to knowing how to grow wheat. If they're dying while typing the CPU is no good for them. And does anyone really want to keep up with the Joneses anymore? =)
I would gladly donate some free "geek" time to a worthy charitable project.
My question is: would you for example consider donating some hours to help a goodwill project - if you could do that from home.
Yes. Why are people making this a more complicated issue than it needs to be?
MIT's Technology Review article on the state of high technology in Ghana should be required reading for the original poster, and all those interested in the subject of technology in the third world. The content of the article should give considerable pause to any clueless individual thinking that happily hacking away in their living room is going to substantially impact the living conditions of those living in the third world. While the article points out the immense promise of technology for the third world (one man interviewed had never received a piece of snail mail in his life, but had internet access, and could read news from around the world), that promise largely remains unfulfilled. The author states
Making a telephone call here requires persistence. Roughly half don't go through because of system failures, but that's only the start of Ghana's telephone woes. The country has a mere 240,000 phone lines--for a population of 20 million spread across an area the size of Britain. Moreover, telephone bills are inaccurate, overcharges common, and the installation of a new line can cost a business more than $1,000, the rough equivalent of the annual office rent. Lines are frequently stolen, sometimes with the connivance of employees of Ghana Telecom, the national carrier. Phones go dead, and remain unrepaired, for months. Some businesses hire staff for the chief purpose of dialing numbers until calls go through.
Moreover, even those fortunate enough to have access to the internet find themselves distraught by the knowledge of the incredibly poor conditions in which they must live. One internet cafe owner stated that the majority of users were online in his cafe trying to figure out a way out their country.
The upshot is that much more effort needs to be devoted towards basic infrastructure -- sanitary, transportation, and information -- before an idea like that of the poster's would make much sense.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Here's a person making an initative towards something. He's doing the work to determine whether there is need, or isn't (and I'm sure the UN will help him too).
/., but many of my friends in the software industry are doing the same. It's like a mass scale of "Office Space" syndrome going on.
He didn't ask us if we thought he was right, he asked if he thought we would contribute.
To answer his question though: I personally find that the state of the economy is quite dismal. And I personally have just come out of a couple of years of programming dark age (with 60 hour weeks etc -- which sadly I worked for way below what should have been paid, like many others I suppose). So these days, any spare time I have, I try to live it fully.
I don't know about others
So to answer you: no, I probably wouldn't.
That's just MHO.
Benj. Franklin, Autobiography
I, for one, would be interested in helping out through some volunteer work, as long as I agreed with the bigger picture.
People have made some good points about putting the needs of a local community ahead of those of the international community, but I've always been of the opinion that no matter who you help, it benefits everyone in the long run.
What I wouldn't like to do is devote several hours/days/months of my time to a largely useless cause ('We're going to give all the kids in Namibia a web page!'). What sorts of things could one volunteer their time for that we could actually beleive would help those we're volunteering for? Are we talking about automating agriculture or streamlining AIDS testing in african countries? (I'm not sure if either of those makes much sense in this context, but you get the point)
How about some good, concrete examples? I've often thought about how much I'd like to be able to help out various orginizations by loaning myself to them to write a bit of code or somesuch. Of course there's always handing out soup to the homeless, but I tend to think your average geek has enough know-how and intelligence to do a little more good than just preforming manual labor. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but if some impoverished 3rd world country could actually _benefit_ from me helping out, then hey, I'm all for it.
Support a very funny and very revealing ad to conserve oil use. I always thought those terrorism/drug ads were pretty ill-founded, but no one can argue with the terrorism/oil connection. Not too mention that this is very very ironic, considering bush's involvement in both the first ad and the second phenomena. They definately have my money.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
NetAid online volunteering.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
my wife is my supper power
It's:
:D
"Build a man a fire and you'll warm him for a night.
Set a man on fire and you'll warm him for the rest of his life."
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
in West africa the basic problem is that you cannot get contemporary IT-training material on the local market. Studying IT means doing some Word and Excel training. they don't have a computer at home. All you have to do is take some outdated Linux books and sent it to the country's feew bookstores.
If there is training material people will use it. there is no lock-in. And every software product is pirated.
California Community Colocation Project provides:
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
I run a blog that talks about running church web sites that they don't suck.
One of the big issues we're discusssing is backend maintenance.
Yes, I'm all for us volunteering our time. That said, we need to make sure we implement systems and solutions that won't leave staff or other volunteers frustrated and/or in worse shape when we move on.
A good example is setting up a church web site. A geek comes along. Makes it look and feel great. A year passes. The geek is gone and now the organization is left there scratching their head trying to figure out how to modify things without breaking them.
In other words. Let's volunteer. But lets not make this like the one time we worked in a soup kitchen so we could feel better about ourselves. Instead, lets provide permanent, long term solutions.
--- have you healed your church website?
with these bastards?
They eat lobster and steak at a conference on hunger while people pick through trash for food just yards away. They deal in child prosetution and pornography. They are a hate club against America and serve no purpose but to creat unpaid parking tickets here in New York!
Through the bumms out!
When it comes to taxes Time=Money works only one way.
No thanks...
Has it occured to anyone that this hiearchy of basic needs may be more efficiently met with the help of technology!
I watched my friend and his family wait for 10 years for the "wait-your-turn / do-it-the-way-we-did-it-cuz-we-know-best" philosophy of hiearchical needs to provide the infrastructure of telephone communications to be built. To date, phone lines do not run into their home. Should he and his family sit and wait for this to happen, in spite of the fact that the new technology of mobile phones became affordable and available?
And why don't people get their collective heads out of their arses and realize that not every "developing" is rife starvation, dictators, illiteracy, slavery (as opposed to freedom), etc. And even when there is starvation, etc. it does not imply everyone is in the same condition. Might it be possible that the availability of new technologies might help them to help themselves?
We brag incessantly about how well Linux performs on older (read cheaper,more affordable) hardware. Well here's an oppurtunity where a lot of the open source efforts can directly affect technological capacity for a society to help themselves. No, they may not have the P4 or the athlon or (insert your hardware config here). But they do have the P3s and the P2s and the 486s and K6s and...
Technology is not the luxury of a society sufficiently "advanced" enough to employ it. It is an enabler that every human being may use to his or her betterment.
I pitched this idea once to Britain's terrific The Register, telling them to steal it and make it their own. Never heard back, or saw the idea show up in print. So may as well purge it from my system now.
The U.S. Congress, the Bush administration and the private sector are all (for once!) lined up on a topic, and that is the need to expand broadband. Some ham-fisted legislative approaches have been proposed, some policy moves at the FCC have been installed, but each has managed to alienate a substantial group of potential collaborators. No one size seems to fit all.
But there is, to my mind, a beautiful confluence that could make a far wider rollout of broadband fairly simple. It involves volunteerism (a current buzz word in D.C.), searching for aliens (something for the Slashdot crowd) and tax cuts (sure to make Pres. Bush tingle.)
Here's how it works:
1. Home user contracts for DSL (or cable, or satellite; in other words, their broadband of choice.)
2. Broadband user signs up for SETI, the Intel Cancer Project, or some other worthy (i.e. nonprofit) distributive computing project. And actually runs the software.
3. User deducts from taxes 100 percent of monthly broadband bill, based on the notion that they have contributed an in-kind service to a tax-deductible charity.
Simplicity itself, yes?
- Ben
Poor people do not pay for public schools. They don't pay for hardly anything tax related. They very rarely pay any property taxes, and their sales tax contributions are virtually nothing.
The poor get a fairly free ride tax wise. We have a very "pregressive" tax system that takes a huge tax burden off the poor and places it on the mid to lower-upper class. Considering how little they do for the "system" they should be pretty glad to be getting free schooling.
...But what about the organizations in the US-- Non-profits, schools, etc.-- that don't have enough money/know-how to set up a decent system.
/ex
Others have mentioned that there are groups in the US that need help, and ways to help the local services. At least in California, there are a few groups that do this. One that I'm affiliated with has provided web space (low/no cost web space), on site technical support, and various small projects for a group of non profit organizations.
It is very interesting looking at this stuff-- there are literally no companies that will offer low/no cost tech support even as donations, to local non profits-- the ones that need it the most.
Get involved with the local groups. Any skills you have are really appreciated, and even if you don't want to or can't be there to help them, if you run a server, set up a little web site for them! Give them an account to get mail, and a hundred megs to put as big a site as they want on it, and it doesn't cost you anything but electricity which you would use anyway-- Usually they pull less than a few thousand hits per month
Okay I have seriouly come to believe that Works by the Tofflers (Alain & Heidi) should really be deriguier for not just congress-critters, but engineers, volunteers and the slashdot crowd. IIRC there was a section where in they posed this same set of dilemas, how to help a preindustrial country (first wave) become self-suffecient, and adept in the shadow of countries orders of magnitued more (technologically) advanced, as well as how to make sure that they aren't swept away in the rushing tidal force of change (the third wave). He cites and example of how a 3rd world country "ethiopia" (don't quote me) was being provided with aide from western countries... that were prone to breaking (outdated and dilapidated farm equipment) and which required both .... for just 1 unit. Don't get me wrong i'm am hardly advocating forcing some small poor rual country to become either: ;-)
a. a strong interlaced and economically viable infastructure of parts, manufacturing and repair work
b. heinous amounts of capital in order to fuel and promote the equipment.
In the example they contrasted the views that foreign aid officers were having at the time, ei Why do they need modern tech that they can't sustain when they have lots of cheep labour and sickles? Well it turns out that strenious, back breaking hand labour like that produced crop yields to be measured in mere tens of bushells per person per day, compare that (a the tofflers did) to old reliable (relatively) and low/old tech McCormick equipment from America of the 1800's which though astoundingly old today *still* produced yield orders of magnitude higher
a. an industrial slum, destroying their enviornment, their children's health, and any semblance of economice stabilizers, becoming a slave-labour pool for ours, or other's intrest
b. a hot bed of high-tech whiz kids who will do *anything* for H1b visas just so long as you dial this 1-900# (got a couple of those already, India and Pakistan come to mind).
No, what I recoment is that yes you should use your code-fu skills to develope/enhance *free* apps for tool design, for logistics/resource sharing . By now i am sure some one will point out the obvious... how can you run a computer withought electricity?... well fine use your engineering degrees for some durable electricity generating devices... use solar/thermal power , human power , waste refinement.... designe something that can be made using cheap donated and spare LOCALLY Availiable parts. You could run a medical care unit, or an disaster refugee tent with some of those alternate power sources.
In short it all boils down to this:
Don't just give 'em fish, teach em to fish.
or in slashdot parlance:
Don't just donate your old commie, theach em how to cook with the waste heat(eventually they'll get a p4 or AMD
This is not possible.
The subject is enough to make them suck regardless of webmaster.
Religion kills a thinking mind.
Sending food to a hungry person will, if it gets their only feed them a few times, then they are hungry again. You did not do anything but prolong their suffering. Their ecosystem is overloaded, this causes famine, plague/disease, and sometimes triggers war over resources. The less nice solution of for the majority of the population to die so as to provide an ample supply of food/resources for those that survive. Suggest that the birthrate be controlled... now that is unpopular.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I've got student loans out. I had some problems when I graduated (married right away, bills ,etc.)
So I couldn't pay right away. So I accrued interest. I'd volunteer if uncle sam wiped the interest clean!
I'm doing some work with an African country right now at work. Half the problem is they don't know what they want - so asking them what they think they want and then trying to build it is a bit of a challenge. We try to nail things down, but they just aren't sure and so you end up with issues of requirements/scope creep. You also end up with differing perspectives and a need to regularly reset expectations. Defining requirements and managing the projects may be a pretty serious challenge for some of the developing countries.
In fact, project management and business analysis skills may be a *key* donation to such an effort. Skilled business analysts, workflow experts, and project management people (esp those familiar with OS projects) would be a real asset to any such plan and should be figured into the mechanism. Correctly setting expectations would be an important part of successful and satisfactory development. This won't be a for-pay effort and it will be a distributed effort. Both invoke certain characteristics and limitations.
I have been looking for just these kinds of local or Int'l IT projects, insofar as I would be permitted by NDA's etc. to participate. I think this would be a worthwhile endeavour for the UN and the Open Source community. And it would leverage some of the powers of some open source OSs which run well on some older hardware, as much of the developing world may not be able to afford the latest 3.4GHz P-4 megasystem.
If this does go anywhere, I hope slashdot will provide ongoing coverage.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I would have thought there would be heaps of opportunity for this - everything from analysing rainfall data to improve local agriculture to traffic management to disease tracking to medical databases for nurses in the field to census analysis to .... etc etc.
Sure, I'll chip in a minute or two. Where do we sign up?
-BM
http://melbournephilosophy.com/
For the past few months I looked for a project similar to what you are describing. I know there are dozens of ways for a person to help out, volunteering at a food kitchen, cleaning a park, etc, but those were things anyone could do. I want to work on a project that needs my skills and will be socially rewarding. Let engineers build bridges, let farms plant crops, I'll write software and help expand their horizons.
In the words of Socrates, "I drank what?!?!"
I teach in an MIS degree at an Australian university. One of our ongoing tasks (although a minor one in my case, as I primarily teach coding) is to form arrangements with industry to give students real-world experience at developing information systems - a number of subjects are heavily project-based, so we need a lot of projects to provide our students with the design and implementation experience that they need.
It occurs to me that perhaps, rather than looking to industry, we should be looking to these sorts of projects. It wouldn't be a complete replacement for industry experience, as the issues will often be different, but I'm sure the students would gain a lot from this.
Nevertheless, I'm not sure that OpenChallenge is the right system for this sort of project development. Are there other groups which could co-ordinate these sorts of projects?
I thought the question was if he could write of the value of the donated code.
If you found a similiar comercial product, wouldnt the fair market value of that code be the value of the cheapest comercial software of the same purpose?
In that case, it seems to me that you could write off that code donation as a product not the time you spent coding it. My parents have donated old cars to the Kidney Foundation and got tax credit for it. Sounds like the same situation to me.
especially since I'm already doing this. But I could spend some more time helping others. :)
Who says being a code monkey can't be fullfilling
First of all, not all third world countries are nearly completely devoid of electricity and food and proper roads. Many such countries do have the basics in place, but are just lacking the technology that can boost them to the next level.
... not in immediately trying to equip the masses with computers and software skills, but by providing software that is *used* to develop the basic infrastructure. For example, a database application that keeps track of food distribution. Engineering applications to help them build roads and bridges and lay electric wire. Web sites that accept donations. There are many custom applications that would be incredibly useful for those situations, most of which will never be developed because of the cost and the distance ... unless there are volunteers around the world willing to develop them remotely.
In the countries that do lack the food and basic infrastructure, there is still much benefit to be gained with software and technology
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Well for what it is worth - I started something called VWDN (virtual web developers network) about six months ago. Here are the details: Volunteer Web Developers Network (VWDN) is a network of socially responsible individuals who provide free technology services to the nonprofit community. Our goal is to develop and implement on-line communications strategies for Washington, D.C. based grassroots organizations that lack adequate in-house or financial resources to effectively perform these tasks themselves. Once an organization is accepted as a participant in the Online Strategy Development Program (OSDP) a project manager is assigned to them. This project manager will work with the participating organization to define the project, deliverables, and determine and allocate resources. This project manager will then coordinate with VWDN's available volunteer resources and develop a project schedule. VWDN works cooperatively with our participating organizations to develop an on-line strategy, design a website, and implement this website. VWDN typically only seeks to engage with organizations who need less complex websites developed, but occasionally we are able to accommodate organizations who require more complex website solutions. VWDN also works with our participating organizations to transfer maintenance of the website to them, as we do not provide ongoing support for the sites that we develop. The website was www.vwdn.org, but our ISP went out of business a couple of weeks ago and I haven't had the time to switch to a more stable hosting provider. Anyway - same sort of approach, only focused on improving specific communities. It should be back up in a couple of weeks.
For anyone who doesn't know "Engineers Without Borders provides people with technical skills the opportunity to help the developing world.". If your looking to do charity work check out their page at ewb
"I believe in everything in moderation. Including moderation." -Dean DeLeo, Stone Temple Pilots
I volunteer my time (and, in some cases, money) with the Boy Scouts, a local aviation for kids program, and a few other charities and good causes. I do it because I like it, because I think it's important, and because I appreciate the fact that people volunteered time for me when I was a Scout, et al. I have no aspirations of financial gain, nor do I receive any (including tax deductions: I don't itemize).
That said, there's nothing wrong with taking a writeoff if you're entitled to same. If you're volunteering specifically for the deduction, you need to examine your motives (and your methods: writeoffs are a poor way to "make" money), but there's nothing wrong with taking the benefit of it. Indeed, many people (myself included) have strong objections to the government, and feel that anything which (legally) keeps money out of Washington is a good thing. Would you say that accepting lunch while on a project site is verboten, because you derive gain from it? Certainly people who refuse to help because they can't profit from it need to do a little soul-searching, but if you're going to do it anyway (for presumably the right reasons), there's nothing wrong with availing yourself of long-provided benefits.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
This is how Dilbert.com Mission Statement Generator put it::
"It is our job to collaboratively restore low-risk high-yield opportunities and synergistically administrate prospective catalysts for change in order to solve business problems."
1) I don't have money. 2) I believe many unemployed programmers would get work, if they could show that they have real life experience. You could understand participating in a goodwill project as education. I really believe, that if you are unemployed - by helping someone else, you are helping yourself.
Thanks for helping!
They already have the concept of online volonteering:
Which they say is connected to this site: netaid on this page about example assignments there are a couple of IT related ones. Those listed:
/Mayar with trying to find a volonteer position herself.
Database / Information System Development
Web Design
Online Educational Tutor
Online Research
Based on the feedback, Yes - I will use time to proceed with the proposal to UNITeS. Also, there was a lot of feedback which helps me in this work. Also, I now know more about the weak points of this approach and can start thinking for answers to them. So, final thank you to all of you who used some brain cycles on thinking. I hope you will hear some good news regarding this co-operation within a couple of months. Thanks!
Invitation to Join the Circuit Riders
Greetings,
This is an invitation to join the mailing list of the
international Circuit Riders, a movement of professional
and volunteer non-profit (NPO) and non-governmental (NGO)
technology assistance providers.
Here is a description of circuit riding from nonprofit
technology support provider and analyst, Marc Osten:
"A Circuit Rider is someone who provides technology
assistance to the nonprofit sector. The help a Rider gives
varies from helping to set up a local area network (LAN)
to coaching an Executive Director to advocate for technology
funding to the board. Part technology cheerleader, evangelist
and skilled technologist, Riders come in many forms. In some
cases foundations fund several Riders to service their
grantees. Riders sometimes are housed within existing
technology support provider organizations. Many Riders
operate as independent consultants and in some cases a
community of nonprofits might pool resources and hire a
Rider. The circuit riding community grew out of the U.S.
progressive social change and environmental movements, as
well as other technology assistance efforts. The Riders
hold an annual conference, The Round-Up, and also currently
engage in a strategic planning process to determine some
coordinated future actions."
If the above sounds like the work you do, we really want
you to join us.
Information on subscribing to our mailing list is at:
http://npogroups.org/lists/info/riders
Information on activities and events is at:
http://www.nten.org
Bill Gates was faced with this same dillema when he first set up his foundation. He went to conferences, heard pitches for thriod world EMAIL, web access, broadband, etc. Finally, he realized the same thing you have - that there was little humanitarian benefit to pushing high tech solutions where they didn't fit naturally. Instead, he got solidly behind vaccine development.
Say what you will about Bill, but he knows how to leverage his money to the task at hand.
PS - And, please, no flames on "he only donates a tiny fraction of his money, so he's still evil incarnate..." I was just using the guy as an example.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."