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Ask Slashdot: Who's the Doctors Without Borders of Technology?
danspalding writes I'm transitioning into full time tech work after 10 years in education. To that end, after years of tooling around with command line and vim, I'm starting a programming bootcamp in early December. I used to think I wanted to go into ed tech. But the more I think about it, the more I just want to contribute to the most important work I can using my new skills — mostly JavaScript (with a strong interest in graph databases). Ideally an organization that does bold, direct humanitarian work for the people who need it most. So where should I apply to work when I finish bootcamp next March? Who's the MSF of the tech world?
Engineers Without Borders
http://www.ewb-international.org/
they used to work out of my university
http://www.nerdswithoutborders.com/
Nerds in action: 'Nerds Without Borders' help solve North Carolina's thorny Turtle problem
Intel has the IESC (Intel Education Service Corp) but you need to be an employee to participate. The good news, for you, is that they work with local charities like World Vision. You could contact existing charities that build schools in places like Africa, SE Asia and South America. It doesn't pay much if anything, but it is extremely rewarding.
I mean in parts of africa where they have no tech and people go hungry and die of diseases we dont have anymore here in the first world
TecNica was one with a focus on Nicaragua and Africa. Sadly they appear to no longer be active.
http://www.tecnicavolunteers.o...
-a.e.mossberg
I'm guessing that your local community probably has some needs for your skills, whether its an elementary school, charity organization, adult education program, etc....You'd be surprised how many people are held back by their lack of basic computer skills Slashdotters think they were born with.
I share your same desire to be able to donate my skills to humanitarian organizations in need (I can't build a house with my hands, but I can sure set up networks, workstations, infrastructure, etc), but many people in the world need basic services like toilets a lot more than they need electronics.
Dan, since your poison of choice of JavaScript, let me recommend CoffeeScript which allows you to write produce JavaScript code without the inherent problems typically associated with JavaScript.
The need is obviously on very different levels on the pyramid of needs.
A doctor shows up to save lives both immediate and long term with vaccinations.
An engineer can set up data or satellite TV, just a different level of need and hence people are more willing to set up a clinic than community wifi.
Civil engineers will also work on sanitation and water supply, also very important life saving work.
Humanitarian efforts of every variety benefit from the advancement of the tools and technologies available to them. A rising tide lifts all boats.
If you really want to benefit all of humanity in a lasting way, spend your resources researching to advance the state of technology to a new level.
Any kind of research qualifies, including computer science research. Anyone anywhere can benefit, directly or indirectly, from a new algorithm, a new and useful tool set, or even more refined or more available versions of what we currently have.
Whether or not you get paid for your efforts is irrelevant. The notion that humanitarianism requires altruism is rubbish. Though there is nothing wrong with jumping in on the rollout of the current-state, and that certainly advances your cause, you can do even more if you have the means, motive, and opportunity to push the state of the art a little further.
http://gwob.org/
I'm sure they have technical infrastructure you could contribute to maintaining or expanding.
http://www.hackersforcharity.org
Not sure if still very active though
The start of the summary suggested the writer was looking for a career. Nonprofits are great and all, but if you are looking for a career you might want to look elsewhere. On the other hand if the person in question just retired, or has other sources of revenue that they could depend on if things didn't pan out, then searching for a "[X] without borders" might be fine.
Case in point, I have known several health care professionals (physicians, pharmacists, nurses, etc) who have worked with their corresponding "[X] without borders" groups at times. They were always happy to do it and to have done it, but they always had to go back to their regular jobs afterwards so that they could pay the bills.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Doesn't the FOSS movement fill this need when it comes to programming? Unlike engineers, who may need to go into remote areas in order to help build wells or other pieces of infrastructure that are necessary for survival, most of a programmer's work (though admittedly not all) either can't be done on-site or simply needn't be done on-site. Rather, you're more dependent on the people having reached some minimum threshold already (e.g. have a computer, have an Internet connection, etc.), at which point providing free and open source software would mean not only allowing them to benefit from your efforts, but could also potentially benefit others in similar circumstances.
I'm not even a big FOSS proponent (i.e. never contributed anything to an OSS project, still don't have a github account, work for a consulting company that does custom applications mostly for oil and gas clients), but to me that seems like the obvious question to ask. When it comes to technology, the borders aren't there, so you don't need a group in order to reach people halfway around the world.
There's also the HRDAG. They do a lot of data analysis, but that requires engineering talent. Lots of consultative-type work that has an impact.
See the podcast at YANSS for more info.
There's also the HRDAG [hrdag.org]. They do a lot of data analysis, but that requires engineering talent. Lots of consultative-type work that has an impact. See the podcast at YANSS [youarenotsosmart.com] for more info. *Previously posted as AC because I forgot to log in. Oops.
most programmers (to hack = to be able to program and to understand at least unix or linux) make the same experiences like described here - most valuable knowledge is at home with help of tools like Unix or Linux have. At University there is only paid knowledge possible when Universities agree with subventions by whatever-big-companies ... - so the schedule for learning at Universities is more dependent and those programmers who learn at
home more things are more independent ... ?! - so this is topic too for freedom of opinion and not for to put "terrorists" into one pot together with "child-abusers" ...
Didn't the Republicans make it illegal to volunteer for them?
You are thinking of the Democrats, who disallow "helping" people if you are not in a union or unable to contribute a minimum to Democratic political campaigns.
A UIUC engineer was beaten at the airport here when he returned from volunteer work outside of the country.
Definitely a union issue, that's the canonical union MO to rough you up a bit if you try to cross the line.
...in places where there is disease, famine, and pestilence.
But seriously, every single country has proven that if you give computer technology to a 3rd world country, they commit crimes on a massive scale with them. So I'd prefer it be NOBODY.
I did tech work and tech education in two developing countries so here is what think.
You should listen to some of the other posters and get your feet wet to see about volunteering in a disadvantage local community in any tech capacity. The developing world is gonna to be orders of magnitude worse than the first world ghetto in terms of resources and poorly executed or vaporware jobs done by predecessors. Also, most people up to the most high in a developing country are going view any type of computer professional as an expert in all IT skills so this local volunteering could help you learn to wear the hats. Check out http:idealist.org to get a local gig.
If you want to get a feel for what the computing environment is in a low resource country without reliable power or broadband, check out this white paper http://www.inveneo.org/2014/07.... The organization Inveneo does well-reputed work as a network and systems integration partner in third world countries. You can also look at the large organizations such as MSF, UN, Partners in Health, US-AID, CARE, VSO and try to apply to the IT area for a job or a volunteer. The paid jobs are going to weight past volunteer experience in a developing country pretty strongly.
But from you talked about, you are interested in the software side. Developing nations generally don't have good electrical power or networking so those type of professionals are more in need than software professionals. I think if you want to get job doing that a combination of any volunteer experience in a developing country, and a remote contribution to a major humanitarian open source project would be the way forward. Software projects to watch that receive attention in the global development scene are http://www.ushahidi.com/, Humanitarian Open Street Map Team, http://hot.openstreetmap.org/ and Open Medical Record System Open MRS. http://openmrs.org/
One group that you might want to check out is TECschange. Their web site is at http://tecschange.org/home/
Most recently that have been computerizing three hospitals in El Salvador. They also refurbish computers and provide them to non-profit groups. They are located in Boston but if you are interested in traveling to El Salvador they probably have software development work that needs to be done in hospitals there.
Hello, guys! I've been working on and now I'm looking for some job in tech. Because Slashdot is a job board, do you guys have any ideas?
Well, as you said, Slashdot is a job board, so just use it: http://slashdot.org/job_board.pl
Non-mainstream programming language? CHECK!
NoSQL database? CHECK!
You, my friend, are ready for webscale.
I worked there for 4.5 years and loved the experience.
Does your work have to be people in other countries? If not, check out Code for America.
In places beset with disasters of most kinds, javascript is a luxury. It is almost completely unnecessary.
In places with crisis, the initial tech requirements are almost always infrastructure (connectivity) - so someone who knows how to setup wifi would be much more required than someone who does a website/apps etc.
So if you do want to work at the 'doctors without borders' of technology... get a skill that matters.... not javascript.
The group Nerds Without Borders have at least one conservation project they are working on and are in need of more help: http://nerdswithoutborders.net/
I think you're being sarcastic, but this is actually helpful. I go for years forgetting that /. has a job board.
Having said that, I was looking for some out of the box suggestions, which I've gotten a few of - like HRDAG in the parent comment. Keep 'em coming!
Teaching, coding, coffee, revolution.
It's an international group which helps defend falsely accused "geeks of color". Here are two recent examples of FTR projects.
1. Ambassador program flies students and techs overseas to meet and qualify buyers of used tech who people are afraid to sell to based on "ewaste" myths. http://resource-recycling.com/...
2. Defense and petitions of UK TV repairman and ex-pat Nigerian Joe Benson, imprisoned in UK for "e-waste crime" based on "common knowledge" that 80% of exports of used equipment to Africa are burned in primitive dumps. FairTradeRecycling got the UN to fund actual research of the containerloads in question, which revealed 91% reuse and repair, better than brand new product, and found the African geeks who buy and repair used equipment were earning 6 times average wages (Ghana, Nigeria). http://resource-recycling.com/...
Disclosure, I'm the founder.
Gently reply
Geez, this place has melted down...
http://www.msf.org/work-msf
MSF addresses severe problems (education shortfall, brain drain) that particularly impact the field of medicine. The problem is specific to medecine because it takes a decade of education to train a single doctor.
There is no equivalent problem in the field of technology, so there is no equivalent organization.
There are already people in developing countries who know how to use JavaScript and would love to apply their skills. And they'll (hopefully) be better at it than you, because they understand the local issues better than you ever will.
You can probably do more good, in a utilitarian sense, by getting a job in America and donating everything you can spare to a nonprofit in a developing country. That nonprofit can hire computer people with the money, building up that country's computer-person economy.
Volunteering overseas isn't a bad idea. But it isn't very humanitarian. Acknowledge that you're volunteering for your own reasons, and try not to make too much of an impact.
Seriously. Humanitarians and idealists are the most useless fucks on the planet.
Ask Slashdot: Who's the Doctors
Since most of the serious posts are already here I can ask: Doctor Who?
I don't know who it is, but I'm morally convinced there's a CSS joke in there somewhere.
Graph databases? Why?
Table-ized A.I.
Doctors Without Borders risk their lives giving medical aid to people that are in such dire conditions that "normal" medical people can't or won't work there anymore. They do it without asking the people they treat for any compensation.
How would you put the ability to write JavaScript anywhere in the same ball park? If you want to help out in any way, learn a medical skill and go out in the field with MSF. Don't ride on those heroes names in your arm chair with your covert job seeking advertisement. While you may want to do good, JavaScript can be written anywhere on the planet and used elsewhere. Stopping some four year old kid from bleeding to death because they just got shelled with a "barrel bomb" dropped from a helicopter can't.
This may seem a bit harsh, but my girlfriend works for MSF. She left last Friday to go on a "field trip".
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
As someone who has been working in software development in developing countries for almost 20 years, I can say that we are no more eager to hire people who are just getting started than the typical small/medium sized business. Why wouldn't I just hire the kid who has done some CodeAcademy courses in Islamabad for the project in Islamabad? He will probably be more motivated than you to stay in Pakistan forever and pass on those skills. He will certainly be less expensive. He will probably get just as much done.
People often make the mistake that we will take anybody because "nobody would want to go to those places" but there is a lot of competition and our code needs to work just like anybody else's. You wouldn't go to a 3 month medtech course and expect MSF to pick you up, why would you expect that of any other nonprofit?
Sounds like maybe what you're looking for is Johnny Long's Hackers for Charity. http://www.hackersforcharity.o...
I have been looking for answer to this question for years, nothing here looks impressive. Seems like we need to build up Engineers without Borders or start something new. Just sayin
I don't know about paying jobs, but here is a really important volunteer opportunity helping build an electronic medical records system for an Ebola Treatment Centre that opened two weeks ago in Sierra Leone. Everything is open source and other groups are also in discussions about using it or building upon it.
https://wiki.openmrs.org/display/projects/Ebola
Sorry for posting as "anonymous coward." My email is "harrow at gmail" if you want to reach me for more info.
One general principle is that many people in rich countries develop technology intended for use in poor countries, and it ends up never quite working there. So, even if you don't end up going with this project, I would recommend making sure that whatever you do has a partner in the country you hope to help. OpenMRS is I think a good example of a group that meets that condition.
Nerds Without Grilfriends
My Heart Is A Flower