Finding IT Firms to Donate to Developing Countries?

A Peace Corps Volunteer asks: "I am currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, Africa and we are looking for organizations to help us fund an IT project. Thus far we have only found orgs that like to either do their own projects or send old computers. There is a large group of experienced volunteers here who just need money to plan and execute projects with in country suppliers (it's amazing how much can be done with a couple thousand dollars on the local market). Does the Slashdot community have suggestions for organizations that like to help fund IT related projects in the developing world?"

Re:looking in the wrong place?

[knewter]

I took donations over to Ireland to set up a computer network for a Bible College there. I raised $10k or so in easily less than a week just by calling local businesses and asking for donations. I set it up so that they could donate to a local church and then the church funded me, so they got easy tax deduction without my having to set up a non-profit, etc.

So I'm saying literally start calling people around. I have a lot of practice raising donations by phone, but it's always a straightforward process. Make a list of those you wish to call, print out the giant table, and just start calling down it. Make notes by all the people as you call them each time, and it'll go by in no time.

Just how I would do it...the idea scales up just as easily to bigger donations.

We should give of ourselves

[jetcityorange]

Change begins with the individual. I own a small software company and we tithe ourselves [azalea.com]. Like most geeks we have too much h/w and s/w. Part of our give back is recycling perfectly useable technology to others like the Tibetan Technology Center. In addition to cold hard cash, we've sent them our "extra" 802.11g routers, adaptors, and antennas. We learned of this project on wired.com (or was it /.?). As long as we're going to pay Speakeasy for hosting and several DSL lines, why not piggyback DSL for two senior housing communities here in Seattle trying to jumpstart connectivity for their residents? My point is that even small organizations and even focused individuals can have a relatively large impact. By linking to some of the organizations we support we've set an example for others. Discussions have been sparked and one company stepped to the plate and offer to write code pro bono for the Tibetan Technology Center. Charity spreads. Having been introduced to Outside the Dream [outsidethedream.org], my two sons and are starting a grassroots effort to help them. The modest amount of citizen involvement I've done over the years has taught me that not all good comes from the Fortune 1000 and their related charitable arms. Look in the mirror. The revolution begins with me.

Re:IT-related volunteer orgs

[itwerx]

May not need as much financial aid if you can get free [interconnection.org] or practically free [techsoup.org] hardware.

Re:Money's a funny thing

[EvanTaylor]

Used equipment is almost not worth deploying. At least for me. I am currently in Kumasi, Ghana, deploying a mixed network of Windows/Linux desktops, with a OpenBSD/Linux backend.

The time consumed by supporting mixed donated equipment is massive. Also, when we asked for "networking equipment" we were given 14.4 modems (Practical Peripherals... ohh those were the days), telecom switches for phone setups, but also some pretty nice 16 and 24 port 10 and 10/100 rack switches.

And the cost of getting the items from our container shipments ran the school over $1000 USD per shipment (2 so far, third one we should get by january). Not to mention shipping them to the school (roughly 200 dollars in gas + driver pay).

Now lets also discuss the computers we got. PII 350mhz to P3 933mhz, some pentium pros, some pentiums, some sub 200mhz ppc macs. Pretty good actually, you'd be amazed how well a customized XP build with every useless service and program ripped out will run on 350mhz systems with 128mb of ram.

The hard drives are the worst problem, we need APCs (for the servers) and power stabilizers to keep the drives from dying. They are all 5-10 years old ide drives, some old scsi drives.

Thankfully I am in a very well developed nation (Ghana is pretty amazing, honestly), with a well funded school (which can afford a $600USD a month 12K isdn over radio internet connection), with roots in the states where a lot of the initial funding came from. Even so, power and internet outages, drives and PSUs dying, and dust/heat problems from the dry season are really making things difficult.

We are working on securing more funding for putting together a ULV, DC-powered, fanless, diskless computer lab (Terminals, Linux/Windows), and solar power to run it all. To keep my project from falling apart when I leave I really need to get new equipment, a powerful server with a lot of ram, and train the new staff on how to manage problems. I will however be coming back once a year for 5 years (or as needed) for deploying new hardware/software, and whatever else we need.

Simply put, used hardware is not the answer for efficient uses of time/money in a lot of cases. It's a stepping stone, it gets computers there, but it doesn't mean they will remain working. Training, equipment that matches peculiar requirements and constraints of the project, well designed deployment infrastructure, and plans for catastrophic failure are what really make a lasting difference.

OLPC really starts looking good when you think about these things.

-Evan