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Ask Slashdot: Where Should a Geek's Charitable Donations Go?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm in the position to direct (or at least suggest the direction of) a fairly large amount of charitable donation on behalf of a foundation interested in promoting education. As a lifelong geek, I'd like to see some of this money directed toward organizations involved in things geeks-like (e.g. spreading technology in education to those without it, improving the use of technology for those who have it, etc.). If it was up to you, what charitable organizations would you support and why?"
Education is a broad category... geek-ish is equally broad depending on application.
Prime Directive... LOCAL...LOCAL...LOCAL. Your operative or key word is impact. You want to insure that as much as your dollar achieves its intended objective and that you have the ability to (if you choose) to verify the impact. Avoid a national or international blunderbuss -- such an approach scatters your money, creates too much dilution and generally includes excessive overhead.
Out-of-the-Box Brainstorm Suggestions:
Crisis Hotline, Woman's Center (or an similar support system for domestic abuse), Big Brothers Big Sisters, Homeless Shelters, Addiction and Rehabilitation Groups
You can also use Charity Navigator to assist you in researching specific organizations.
Each of these can be geeked-up to provide uplift and outreach were normal "geek enablement" or "geek opportunity" might otherwise simply be unavailable due to lack of funding. KEEP IN MIND -- Educational opportunities and technical services are very low priority when safety, food, and shelter are priority one!
Just a thought...
https://eff.org/ - Doesn't need an explanation really.
https://archive.org/ - The librarians of the internet
As someone who's kids are currently in Elementary school -
Find someone who's writing public domain textbooks for elementary education, especially those aimed at technological implementations (tablet based, etc). Why in god's name does my school district have to pay $60 for a fifth-grade math textbook - revised last year? What has changed in "3x=24" in the last, oh, 1000 years that requires a new revision of a textbook?
There's so much that could be done with technology and education that hasn't been. Why can't learning Multiplication tables be phrased as a game - come up with the answers to jump and capture a coin; take too long and you miss it? Why can't Spelling, and Grammar, be a game; Why can't the broad sweep of history be presented as a graph, with hyperlinks from points on the graph to an overview and details of that point in time? Why can't the out-of-copyright classics be available in a learning-reader format, with hyperlinks for all difficult words to pronunciation and definition?
Hell, give me the money and I'll get started!
And the worms ate into his brain.
The textbook publishers have managed to emasculate most of the "open textbook" projects so far. We need truly open textbooks that anyone can republish, and modify as time goes on and the art changes. These will be a gift to society that continues for decades.
Bruce Perens.
I participated in high school back in 1995. It and its younger cousins are still going strong, introducing hundreds of thousands of elementary, junior high, and high school students to robotics and by extension programming, engineering, and science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRST_Robotics_Competition
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
MIT Open Courseware is a good project.
And everyone knows the Wikimedia Foundation, but they can use more help.
How about giving away a free voltmeter to any student from a 3rd world nation who passes the edX course "Circuits and Electronics"?
6002x "Circuits and Electronics", an online version of the MIT introductory electronics course. This was an exact copy of the MIT course, taught by an MIT professor, and was just as hard as the original course. Same material, same difficulty, online format.
Some of the 7,000 graduates were from 3rd world nations. For example, this article talks about a class of high-school students in Mongolia:
I'm reminded of William Kamkwamba, who built a wind-powered generator and was able to bring electricity to his village. His Ted talk is pretty interesting.
Mr. Kamkwamba had nothing. He built his windmill from scratch after learning the principles of electricity from books in the local library. He built his own circuit breaker by winding wire onto nails driven into wood.
His task would have been so much easier if he could have measured continuity, or the output voltage of his generator.
Most of the modern world is based on electronics - measurements, actions, communications, and so on. Having the tools and understanding would allow people to repair broken equipment and machinery, to take pieces from ewaste and hook them together in new ways, and generally have better life opportunities.
Supplying 5,000 students (a generous estimate) would cost only $10,000.
Here is the contact page for edX.
I just happened to mention this to my Mum, who works with several charities in the UK.
She says - "Don't just give money. Most local charities are in dire need of help with their IT."
RS
What's more important:
People eating? People having access to the Internet?
People not being shot? People having a laptop each?
People not dying from diarrhoea? People offering lessons on the Internet?
People going to school? People going to a school which has Wifi tablets or OLPC's?
I work in education. Computers, and technology, do not make that much of a difference over plain, ordinary education. In fact, in some cases it's quite plainly DETRIMENTAL to the quality of education given (the kids know how to google an image, paste it into word, and print it out but can't do simple sums without a calculator).
Sure, in a good school, with decent funding, and teachers who know how to use it effectively and do so all the time (the last of which is very rare and the only people you ever see demonstrating their results improvements!), IT can make a difference. But it's not that much.
But out in the African deserts, Indian slums or wherever you wish to focus your efforts, it's not going to make a jot of difference. For the price of such junk you could just train a decent teacher who doesn't NEED instant, fingertip access to the works of Shakespeare to teach any subject you want them to. All you're doing is putting a technology burden on charities and people who can't afford to eat.
I don't "get" tech charities at all. In any country. If you want to make a difference, give a kid some manky horrible porridge that will keep him alive this month, or work to get them out of the slums through basic, normal education (i.e. funding a school building and a teacher is MORE than enough to get him going and any IT crap is just getting in the way after that), or give them an injection to make them immune to some killer disease, or support efforts to make their home countries safer from rebels killing and raping them.
Don't give them a hand-me-down gadget that you think is "cool". Just don't. Give them a life, instead.
And, take it from someone who works in schools: Don't donate your old crap to your local school. Hell, don't even encourage them to have "one PC per child" or whatever. It hurts basic education in your average school compared to just employing a slightly better teacher.