Global Citizenship Larry Nelson

In the twelve days since we first blogged about the Myanmar and China disasters, Sun employees and others have raised more than $34,000 (USD) in contributions through our Disaster Relief Drive online tool administered by Aidmatrix.

Contributions really took off after Bill MacGowan, Sun's Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President People & Places, sent an email to all Sun employees around the globe about the Disaster Relief Drive.

 

If you would like to help keep the momentum of support going, you can make a donation directly through Sun's Disaster Relief Drive to one of three nonprofit organizations (Red Cross, World Vision, Save the Children)---you will see these choices when you get to the “check out” page of the Aidmatrix tool.

The tool is open and available to anyone---Sun employees, friends, family members---anyone.

If you have a different charity you would like to support---and there are many others---by all means please do so with Godspeed.   The help is needed.    

Thank you for your contributions in this time of need.    If you have any questions about Sun's Disaster Relief Drive, please contact volunteersupport@sun.com.  

 

Note to Sun Employees:    Sun will match your contribution through the Aidmatrix tool---select this option at the "check out" page.    If you wish to contribute to a different nonprofit of your choice, Sun will also match your contribution to qualified nonprofits per the guidelines of Sun's Matching Gift Program.   Program guidelines apply to either of these scenarios.    Send any questions to volunteersupport@sun.com.

...and it seems like so often the people who are at the greatest disadvantage to help themselves are the ones who take the brunt of nature's fury.
 
During the Katrina Hurricane disaster, Sun's Global Citizenship Team established a year-round disaster relief program with its partner, Aidmatrix.  

Through the Aidmatrix web-based service, Sun employees, friends, family, partners---anyone---can make contributions to agencies that are generally the most capable of delivering resources directly to the need....not-withstanding military road-blocks.  Ugh.  :-(

If you're looking for a way to help people in the aftermath of a disaster---like the recent earthquake in China and the cyclone in Myanmar---our disater relief program through Aidmatrix provides an excellent option.   Pick the amount you want to donate, then proceed to the check out page, where you can designate to which charity you want your donation to go from the pull-down menu.

 

Update:   it was a great success!   Many thanks to NetSquared and all the nonprofits and developers that joined us during this Sunday afternoon event.

Approximately 35 people attended, representing nonprofits and developers interested in contributing their time, talent and technology.   A few of the groups completed a mashup and many more developed implementation plans to move their technology projects forward.

Pics to share:

 

A lot of great work was started and a few mashups completed.   Excellent feedback was also provided regarding how to carry this forward.

Stay tuned.  :-)

 

Help local nonprofits harness the power of the web.

We are doing a really cool thing on May 4th in conjunction with CommunityOne.   We are inviting attendees from CommunityOne & JavaOne, plus student developers, to participate in a Meetup/Mashup to support local nonprofits.    Working with NetSquared, Sun Microsystems, Inc. is leveraging this diverse and talented community of technology experts to help organizations with the technology challenges they face.

Details

May 4 | Noon – 5pm | Moscone Center

Learn more: http://wikis.sun.com/display/CommunityOne/Meetup.Mashup

Meetup/Mashup provides you an opportunity to direct your talent and programming skills to nonprofits focused on making positive social change, to see how others are using to technology to enact positive social change, and an opportunity meet some passionate people working to make the communities where we live and work a better place.

Share your expertise for positive social change

Non-profit organizations need your help with a range of challenges including:

Refining some of their ideas about how the data they are using could be rendered in mashups; and
Building mashups using a variety of APIs, products, or coming up with creative technical solutions to particular problems they are facing.

Signup to Participate

If you are a student developer or an attendee of CommunityOne and/or JavaOne and you want to help make a difference by attending this event, please email: meetup.mashup@sun.com with your:

Name:
Technology expertise:
Employer/Nonprofit or/School
Interests (for developers: Cause that you are passionate about; for non profits: technology challenge(s) you hope to address)
Developers, please indicate if you are interested in being a discussion leader at the event

Confirmation of participation as well as logistics will be sent out by Tuesday, April 29.

Space is limited: so please sign up today!

This event is organized by NetSquared and Sun Microsystems.

The Global Citizenship Team got together with some of our star volunteers to spread the word about Sun's upcoming Worldwide Volunteer Week (WWVW).   We opened a "table" smack dab in the middle of Sun's Menlo Park, CA corporate headquarter's cafeteria to sign-up project leaders and volunteers.

A few pics below.

In the center of this first picture is Gilda Garreton.   During WWVW, Gilda is leading a fantastic project called "Hello Buddies/Hola Amiga".   Gilda's project uses Project Wonderland---virtual reality technology developed in Sun's Labs---to connect students in the Bay Area, CA with students in Santiago, Chile.   Using the resources provided by this virtual space, children will communicate with their "buddies" and practice their second language.  Gilda Garreton in the Bay Area and Juan Carlos Herrera in Sun Chile are driving this excellent example of how Sun technologies drive participation on the network and power the global marketplace.

 

The next two pics show Sun employees signing up to lead and volunteer.   Another volunteer "rock star", Christina Carrier is in these pics...she is in the background of both.

 

And how cool is this:   Bill MacGowan (Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President, People and Places) on the right,  Cece Waters (Program Manager for Making Sun A Great Place to Work) on the left, and moi (Larry Nelson, Director Global Citizenship) in the middle.   Cece was a big help spreading the word with us, and it was great to have Bill stop by and recognize the collaboration and volunteer activities happening.

 

Pictured below (on the right) is Donna Mar, our fellow Global Citizenship Teammate and organizer of this "tabling" event.

Thanks to all for helping the Global Citizenship Team spread the word!

On Friday March 7th I participated in a Hack-Day sponsored by NetSquared.   Approximately 15 non-profit groups attended, and were joined in discussions by about the same number of developers with specific technology skills.   The event was sponsored by, and held at, Google's Mt. View offices.

The discussions ranged from "I have an idea, but I'm not sure where to go with it...";  to "I have an idea but don't know where to find a data set to make it work"; to "I have an idea and a data set, but can't figure out the api to make it work"

   

It was very cool.   The energy was high, and the efforts sincere.   It was great to see technology experts offering their skills to support non-profits. 

It always strikes me when I attend these types of events how important it is to have opportunities for face-to-face interactions to fuel and maintain a community's momentum.   (During my three year tenure as Co-Chair of the Schools Interoperability Framework Association (SIFA) we held code-a-thons 3-4 times a year).

The Global Citizenship Team at Sun has promoted Netsquared's Mash-up Challenge to our employees.   We are looking forward to seeing what contributions our fellow employees may make to non-profits in this arena. 

I am curious if readers of this blog have participated in similar hack-a-thons / mash-ups.   What were your experiences?