How Can Techies Give Back?

KReilly asks: "As the school year starts back up for me, I have been looking for a volunteer program I could work in. This year I have been considering creating my own non-profit organization, but I still lack a clear picture of what I hope to accomplish. I have read about communities wiring classrooms for the internet in California, and repairing computers donated by businesses for schools. I would like to do this, but find many schools and libraries would deny this donation since its maintenance would be too big of an investment for them and they do not want to experiment with Open Source alternatives that would lower the PC repair cost. So my question to you is how do you, as a tech, give back to society and aid in social programs? And, any information/advice you wanted to share on my original idea would be much appreciated."

Comments

Are you patient?

[doc_traig]

If you are, go to a retirement community and teach seniors how to use computers to access the Internet (mail and web). You will be bowled over by how thankful they are and how excited it makes some of them.

be a warm body

[ajrs]

Most service groups need bodies more than they PCs. If a problem with a tech fix presents its self, offer to solve it. You might even shudder have to support some windows apps. When a real problem that is best solved with open source software happens, you'll be on hand to do it.

I'm doing some some office work for my church, and I set up a mysql database to make it easier. Nobody but me knows, or cares, that it takes half the time it did before.

Find the smaller non-profits

[pillohead]

I found a small homeless youth advocate non-profit that needed a lot of computer help. Since they were small I spoke directly to the Executive Director and convinced her to let me solicit donations for old computers and fix em up. She even gave me a budget for a new computer when I explained I could use 1 server to power the desktop of all these old computers she had. Now they have 3 computers (soon to be six) running FreeBSD with no licensing costs that she can give access to these homeless kids. I networked up the whole place and setup their dsl and firewalled it with some other old computer. She couldn't be happier, but since I was a volunteer and I couldn't find work I had to move back to California to save money. I can do most administration tasks from here (thank god for ssh) but sometimes the dsl modem gets disconnected and I have to walk a kid there through ifconfig down, ifconfig up routine, bleh.

The great thing about this is now that I'm moving back they can help me find work and an apartment since I'll be a homeless youth, YAY!

Re:Find the smaller non-profits

[sporktoast]

I found a small homeless youth advocate non-profit that needed a lot of computer help. Since they were small I spoke directly to the Executive Director and convinced her to let me solicit donations for old computers and fix em up. She even gave me a budget [...]

This is exactly the sort of approach you should take, KReilly. Thinking "This year I have been considering creating my own non-profit organization, but I still lack a clear picture of what I hope to accomplish." is putting the cart before the horse. You wouldn't say "This year I have been considering applying for a patent, but I still lack a clear picture of what I hope to invent." Creating a non-profit *might* be a way to amp up an idea that you've already fleshed out, but you really do want to figure out that idea part first.

Pillohead here has an idea that he has initiated (and one that you might consider emulating), and perhaps forming a non-profit to help it scale is the next level. Perhaps not.

I've been employed by, contracted for, AND been on the board of directors of several non-profits. The ones who have consistently been the most successful are the ones that have a strong vision of what they want to accomplish.

Take the time to figure out what kind of services you want to provide, and to whom. Sure, you have lots of skills, but which ones to you really want to use all the time? Would you rather build and maintain computers and networks for charities (like Pillohead's example)? Maybe you'd enjoy teaching elderly nursing home residents about accessing the internet? You mentioned "repairing computers donated by businesses for schools". If that's what you want to do, why not contact some existing non-profits who do similar work in other parts of the country, like CompuMentor or the Philadelphia Reuse Collaborative and ask them about what it takes to do what they do? You should also think about whether you want to be the one getting your hands dirty (string cable, swap boards, install software, teach users, etc.), or whether you want to be the visionary who is in charge of everything like an Executive Director or Board Member (write by-laws and policies, do grantwriting and other fundraising, maintain press contacts, etc.).

As to your last question " how do you, as a tech, give back to society and aid in social programs?", what *I personally* do is work as a consultant for non-profits and give them whatever kind of computer help they need that I have the skills for. I charge slightly less than the going rate because I know their budgets are not large. Often I do some small amount of work first in a volunteer capacity. This allows me to create good will and familiarity between us, and lets me understand more about their needs and how my skills might or might not fit. I tend to lean toward social justice issuses, so my local Community Shares federation has been a terrific starting point for finding organizations that could use my help.

CEO says do it or no raise..

[Anonymous Coward]

At work, they made it mandatory that every employee do some sort of community charity event. They even pay for the day you are off working for charity. (Unless you are Salary, and you just loose your day off)... They also tied it to the performance and yearly raise, so it was basically required.

Not bad enough, your sys-admins work 60 hours a week, have no life, and get to spend 1 day with the wife and kiddies, they have to spend their day off ripping out bushes at a fish spawning lake, so some CEO gets to brag that his company did 40,000 hours of community service.

How about giving back to the familys that work all services that run this country, and let the kids spend time with the parents. Now 55 hour work weeks are becoming the norm and then salary pay to help state budget crunches.

Ok, after that long rant about how it sux for some people. You can use this to your advantage, CEO's are looking for people and projects. You might want to start talking to the Business community and community leaders on ways to help, and projects they might want to Fund and run.

how about really bridging the digital divide

[1iar_parad0x]

I hate to get on my soapbox, but this is Slashdot and it's a slow article. Incidentally, the first half of my post is a relevant rant and the second half is my deduced idea. Ever in the Slashdot tradition, I delimit my rant in non-W3C compliant XML for all of you.

/
I'm one of the many dot com layoffs. I returned to school to finish my degree. In doing so, I've been getting by as a contract programmer. It's not stable so I've had to pick up some side work. However, most non-tech businesses won't even touch me. Ever try getting a job at a wal-mart when your last salary was twice the store manager. I tend to water down my background on those applications, but they won't even look at me. So, I've been working some pretty ugly labor-intensive temp work. My co-workers (and bosses) are severely uneducated. I'm not trying to be arrogant. It's just a fact. A couple of them are quite bright, but they never applied themselves.

For instance, one coworker who I've become friends with is a perfect example. He has quite a bit of street smarts. I think he has a lot of potential. He even had a chance to go to college on a football scholarship. However, he somehow has it pounded into his head that school is impractical or completely unnecessary. (Of course given the state of urban American high schools.....) All of his plans are nothing but a bunch of get rich quick schemes. They also have a fair amount of holes in them as well. I think he also had trouble in school. However, he's been taking classes at a local community college and his grades have vastly improved.

I'm pretty much a self-taught kind of guy. On the one hand, I think college is somewhat just a piece of paper. However, I realize the relevance of that paper in attaining a job. It's an unfortunate but necessary certification. We live in an age of watered down and proliferated certification. On the other hand, I'm probably more self-educated that the average person. When I was younger I spent quite a bit time acquiring books (on the cheap) on everything from computers, mathematics, physics, etc. I didn't even own a computer as a kid and had a bit of a steep learning curve in my first CS course.
I can only imagine the digital divide is even worse. The guy I mentioned earlier wants to learn about computers. So I'm plan on helping him set up a home network with some older PCs I'm picking up at a local surplus auction. I'll introduce him to Linux. Maybe I even try to get him to learn a little about electronics and build a radio. Even if he doesn't plan to study CS, Math, or EE etc, hopefully he'll gain some insight in how to solve problems and think in a more analytical way. Hopefully he'll pick up a few job skills as well.
/

Here's my idea. Try finding a community center and teach a class in programming or networking. Not a stupid intro to the web/HTML class. Offer a serious course. Get the students to open up a few machines. Set up a LAN. Throw a LAN party at the end [run Quake if the machines are too old]. Trust me, if you go to a real inner city neighborhood, they probably won't own high-end PCs anyway. Most colleges and gov't agencies sell old PCs in bulk at low rates. DON'T TEACH TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. Try the Feynman approach. Make it challenging and throw hooks that will catch the interest of your listeners. Raise the standards of the students. Sure, some will get bored, confused, or drop out. However, there will be those one or two students who will get hooked. This is why public schools SUCK in this country. Always lowering the standards to meet the needs of the worst students. Apparently the average EdD hasn't hard of Zeno's Paradox. Let's reduce our education to an infinitesimal level. Great idea!! Anyway, personally I'd love to design a GPL type collection of books to introduce CS.

Computers for Students.

[UnifiedTechs]

I work at a public High School and turn down many donations for computers, the main reason being they are too old, I can't talk about all school systems but anything I am offered is usually much worse then what I currently have and will not support the software I am running.

That said one thing we have looked at is repairing the computers we ourselves throw away and giving them to needy students. Our main hurdle has been finding the manpower to do this. Try contacting local schools and see if any are trying to do something similar, Or just ask them what they think you can do. Asking is alot easyer and more productive then trying to quess what you can do for them.

Write software

[Tom7]

Well, I'm not a tech, but one way you can benefit society is to put your skills to work and write a free replacement for some needed piece of software. It's the kind of thing that not many people can do, and, since your work can be copied by millions of people once it's written without much extra work, it has the potential to have a great impact.

If you're interested in helping society at a different level, you could volunteer to make or maintain a web page for some community organization that you support.

Teach!

[Jellybob]

If you're in the UK (since I'm talking in general here, rather than specifically for the OP), then find your nearest UK Online or Learn Direct centre, and ask what they need help with... in all liklyhood, they *will* need help.

I work in one as their sysadmin, and we're constantly looking for people either to maintain the machines here (I'm not full time), or do one to one teaching of the clients in everything from using a mouse, to database design.

It's a great thing for yourself as well... when I started here I assumed I'd just be doing sysadmin, but because people know me, they'll ask me how to do things - and it's turned out to be the best part of the job, since I get the satisfaction of someone knowing something they didn't before.

Find something useful first

[bluGill]

Maybe I'm a cynic, but when someone days computers in the classroom I respond with why. Nobody has given an answer to that. Classrooms are for learning, and computers are a tool. A computer in every classroom makes as much sense as a hammer in every classroom. A hammer is a useful tool, and your education is incomplete if you don't take one shop class where you use one (in todays world you shouldn't spend much time with it, but shop is at just as important as art, music, and home ecconomics classes - give everyone a basic introduction to the subject and let those who like it take more), but there is no place for a hammer in many classrooms. A computer lab is useful. Perhaps several, because there are useful things to do with a computer in school, and some teachers will require many papers written on the computer.

So your first task is to ask why when you have an idea.

As for ideas: that is up to you. I recomend you stay away from things that need your day job skills. You don't want to get burnt out on the day job. Obviously if things are going to be wired for computers it takes an expert, but try not to burn yourself out.

How about orginizing your local parade, or town days. These commities need a lot of help, and you get to meet people in the comunity useful to know. Is there an orginization that you support? Ducks unlimited is my favorite, but there is also the EFF, which gets more press on slashdot. As a kid I was in 4-H, and they need help all the time, what groups where you in as a kid? How about local parks? Not the playground, (they might or might not get all the help they need from local taxes), but the state and federal parks that maybe nearby, which generally need more help than they get.

Real communities

[Anonymous Coward]

As a techie, I've spent countless hours setting up virtural communities. Now though as a way to give back to the community I'm working with my real community setting up an online presence that all of my neighbors can use to exchange information about city council meetings, park rules, road work information in the neighborhood... The stupid crap that would normally be on a physical bulletin board, but due to the size of my neighborhood (we're talking about 2 square miles in the heart of midtown Atlanta) simply isn't workable in the traditional manner.

It's kinda funny. After setting up so many communities for people who will never see each other, it's an odd feeling to do it for people who live nearby and you see everyday. We are actually in the process of setting it up to track local council decisions and upcoming votes and the like. It's nice having a history of those votes publicly available and commentable.