I've volunteered at several local non profits, and I decided the best way to use my skills is to work on relevant open source projects. Here is the path to this conclusion:
-Volunteer at a small communtiy based non-profit, that already understands the power of computers to make their organization more efficient.
-Find an endless number of ways you can use technology to make them even more efficient.
-Realize that these solutions need to be super easy to use and support. Why? These employees are very overworked, and shouldn't have to waste time figuring out an unecessarily complicated tool.
-Realize it is not useful to write custom apps, because there will be no support when you leave.
-Look for easy to use pre-existing tools that are stable and can be figured out by someone after you leave. You find they cost $$$$.
-Find many many open source projects that would be very useful but they aren't easy enough to use yet, or they require a linux server or desktop.
-Setup a linux server with WebAdmin, so they can easily reconfigure it.
-Note that it shouldn't require a geek to turn a old computer into a very useful easy to configure linux server.
-Look closer at the linux desktops and find they are almost easy enough to use and configure.
-Fix
Open source is the perfect IT solution for sustainable developement. Sure, the non-profit can get a big grant and buy fast computers with all the latest proprietary software, but then they have to keep getting grants to upgrade their software. And they need to upgrade their computers to run this new software. This translates into a lot of unecessary capital just to get started and to stay up-to-date.
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I've volunteered at several local non profits, and I decided the best way to use my skills is to work on relevant open source projects. Here is the path to this conclusion:
-Volunteer at a small communtiy based non-profit, that already understands the power of computers to make their organization more efficient.
-Find an endless number of ways you can use technology to make them even more efficient.
-Realize that these solutions need to be super easy to use and support. Why? These employees are very overworked, and shouldn't have to waste time figuring out an unecessarily complicated tool.
-Realize it is not useful to write custom apps, because there will be no support when you leave.
-Look for easy to use pre-existing tools that are stable and can be figured out by someone after you leave. You find they cost $$$$.
-Find many many open source projects that would be very useful but they aren't easy enough to use yet, or they require a linux server or desktop.
-Setup a linux server with WebAdmin, so they can easily reconfigure it.
-Note that it shouldn't require a geek to turn a old computer into a very useful easy to configure linux server.
-Look closer at the linux desktops and find they are almost easy enough to use and configure.
-Fix
Open source is the perfect IT solution for sustainable developement. Sure, the non-profit can get a big grant and buy fast computers with all the latest proprietary software, but then they have to keep getting grants to upgrade their software. And they need to upgrade their computers to run this new software. This translates into a lot of unecessary capital just to get started and to stay up-to-date.