Tech-Related Volunteer Gigs 252
jeffomatic writes "Here's a question for Service Day: what kind of volunteer opportunities are available out there for the technologically-inclined? I'm a software developer and I'm wondering if there's anyone in the field engaged in pro-bono work, like IT or teaching or web design or whatnot. I'm not at all above rolling my sleeves up and working at shelters or the local park, but it occurs to me that my professional skills might be usefully applied in the service context as well. I'd like to hear about what other people are doing, in terms of projects, time commitments, organizations, etc." Or just commit a patch to your favorite project.
Your local free/reduced medical clinic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
...i bet could really use some simple PHP+xSQL database for scheduling and stuff.
Most small non-profits keep records in a smattering of paper and undocumented excel sheets, they could really use your IT expertise.
Re:Your local free/reduced medical clinic.. (Score:5, Informative)
That's a great idea, and it's also true for many charities. Pick your favorite, call them up, and talk to them. I volunteered to do database stuff for the local Habitat for Humanity.
Re:Your local free/reduced medical clinic.. (Score:5, Informative)
You might also want to check places like TechSoup [techsoup.org], where non-profits would look for tech help.
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Agreed, I used to work for 2 different non-profit orgs in Newcastle, NSW, Australia when I lived there... was tough times, hard to find work, so I just gave my expertise to these people. I received about 6 months worth of work fixing computers, replacing equipment for cheaper to run, more efficient equipment, or even just making sure their security was up to scratch (easy to do as they were all running *nix distros of different flavours).
Any org will jump at the chance of a free techie, the reason being tha
Re:Your local free/reduced medical clinic.. (Score:4, Funny)
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Well I'd say websites in general. There are many non-profits who I'm sure could use a good website and/or hosting and maintenance. That is probably the number one way us nerds can donate our skills.
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I've heard of this website that would surely welcome volunteers who are good with perl and SQL. Have a look at this, I'm confident someone here would be able to contribute something useful. They have a development-related blog here [slashcode.org]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Or (Score:2)
Re:Or (Score:5, Funny)
Johnny's village was too poor to afford basic necessities like clean water, food, and medicine. Thanks to h4x0rz without borders, they were able to set up a 10k client botnet which they used to run Nigerian-style scams. Now they have the things they need to live like water, food, medicine, and satellite TV. You can help a village just like Johnny's, join h4x0rz without borders today!
Re:Or (Score:5, Informative)
A few things come to mind (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A few things come to mind (Score:5, Informative)
You could volunteer and show a few elderly individuals how to use a computer.
If you want to do this, the place to get in contact with is your local library. They'll either do the classes themselves, or know who to contact at the local school system's 'continuing education', which is the other place that might be doing it.
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"You will exert all of this effort to teach an individual who is really past their learning stage a skill that requires a huge amount of infrastructure...I definitely would go for teaching young children, who would benefit (and need it) more and also be more receptive to technology. "
Yes but there is always the chance that the person you teach to use the computer will reward you handsomely in their will. Young kids are much less likely to die before you and to acquire a lot of wealth to leave you if they d
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Two weeks ago, one of my Tech Support specialists quit a good government position(read "secure and well paid") after only 11 months. The reason? A elderly woman she had taught computers to around 6 years ago died, leaving her a 7 figure beque$t. They had stayed in touch, but not that close. It seems she was VERY grateful for learning how to do email to her great-grandkids in Asia.
Seriously, where can I get some actuarials?
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I definitely would go for teaching young children, who would benefit (and need it) more and also be more receptive to technology. If every child learned some basic programming (say, Python or some shell scripting), they would grow up into much more savvy end users.
For younger kids, things like LittleWizard [sourceforge.net] and EToys [squeakland.org] are a good way to introduce the concept of programming without worrying about syntax.
I have both of these, and some good Python-based games, as part of a Linux distro for kids at:
http://www.quinncoincorporated.org/ [quinncoincorporated.org]
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Scratch [mit.edu] is good too. Variables, loops, iterators, etc. Along with cute cartoon characters. My boy started at 2 and is learning well.
Re:A few things come to mind (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, no.
My wife's mom is 89 years old. She is working with her eeePC just fine, thank you despite having only these resources:
- A neighbor who had one - her neighbor is not a tech-savvy geek, but someone who's 55 herself and happens to live upstairs. And taught herself how to use the eee... Scary, but she did.
- Never, repeat NEVER used a keyboard before. Voicemail on her cellphone scared her somewhat.
- Never even *saw* the Internet unless one of her daughters brought their notebook over to show her pictures of the great-grandkids.
Since her apt complex put in WiFi, several other residents have gotten various machines. How she manages with the eee is beyond me, but she pecks away at it, and I get emails from her. She even gets the whole video thing. We may have started something....
No one is too old. That's beyond bogus. Stupid knows no age.
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My wife and I (both 56) are moving into a 55+ mobile home park here in Florida. Before we even bought, my wife helped one of the 80-ish neighbor ladies change a printer ink cartridge. Then she helped another one hook up a new keyboard. Now they're offering to pay her, because they were all paying GeekSquad and similar rip operations $75+ per service call for seriously easy computer tasks. Debbie won't take their money, but I'll tell you... we have some of the nicest home-sewn curtains you ever saw for our n
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Nah, that's nonsense. It depends entirely on the individual involved. I guess you must be in your teens or something, and think that everyone over 40 is practically dead!
Helping old people get to grips with computers and the internet is a very good idea. It can make the difference between a lonely ol
non profits (Score:5, Informative)
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As an aside, it could prove an incredibly sleazy way to pick up women.
Having been a man in a woman's shelter - just in the office area - and seeing how some of the abused women react, that's not even the slightest bit funny.
I know I'm just feeding a troll here, but F U, simpleton.
Small Open Source project (Score:4, Insightful)
CmdrTaco gave you the answer.
If you want to work pro-bono, why don't you just start working on an open source project, that's not big enough to pay you yet?
Simple question. Simple answer.
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You make a good point. Although people use open source programs and OSs for many different reasons poverty is one reason that some folks use open source materials. Any contributions to open source do somebody good whether it be for economic or other reasons. I am reminded of my neighbor who uses Windows smashing his laptop to small pieces after Windows locked up on him as he was just about done with a complicated schedule that had taken him several hours to build.
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You make a good point. Although people use open source programs and OSs for many different reasons poverty is one reason that some folks use open source materials.
stinginess is the main reason for me personally ..
but OSS isn't without it's share of frustrations too - i'm reminded of the many times i've caught myself before kicking in my old pentium servers after multiple complex kernel hacks trying to get poorly written and undocumented driver code to compile cleanly
There are many choices (Score:4, Interesting)
I actually prefer donating labor to the environment through the local park & rec. department. Gives me a chance to get out in the big blue room and move some dirt around through tree planting, landscape maintenance and other things I don't do on a regular basis but are actually kinda fun for a day project.
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If you like open air projects of great public benefit have you considered stalking and killing drug dealers? You do the world a favor and you get to rip off their cash as well. Please be certain you aren't bumping off under cover cops by accident.
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Today. Service day isn't an official holiday, its an idea by Obama that people should spend a day doing volunteer work. He suggested MLK day. Obviously no requirement to do so, but with so many worthwhile causes out there encouraging people to help out is a good thing, even if only a small number do so.
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I'm much prefer sysadmin day and talk like a pirate day.
I am looking forward to this year's Talk Like a Somali Pirate Day! *splash* *gasp* *gurgle* *glug*
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One of the choices here in Portland is FreeGeek. They build PCs for folks and offer classes in open source usage.
http://www.freegeek.org/ [freegeek.org]
Try Craiglist: (Score:5, Informative)
Volunteer dev in Toronto [craigslist.ca]
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We are seeking for few talanted VOLUNTEERS
I hope they're looking for typecheckers too... They need one ASAP!
If you're interested, there are (Score:2)
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You have time to post on /. so get working on the conversion, you lazy clod!
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bill{no_freaking_spam_please}@{or_ill_slap you with a herring}ultimatesalsaparty.com
while removing the funny bits from the email address of course.
tech related, but not necessarily software related (Score:4, Informative)
The traditional thing for nerds to do... (Score:2, Informative)
...is to volunteer to do tech for local theatres and music venues.
But if you want to actually do computer work, all your local non-profits could stand to have someone come in and work on their computers. Seriously. Half their security software will be expired, their systems will be loaded with spyware, it's a mess, even worse than a random individual computer's. They have no IT, they do not train their workers, and they have a large amount of people using each computer. It's a recipe for disaster.
They alm
Commetment? (Score:5, Informative)
I had a similar urge some years back, so I volunteered at the local Habitat for Humanity office. They had some need for simple IT work, and I probably could have done just fine.
But... then I got busy with other stuff. And I found my passion for helping people wasn't consistent. Before long I handed back my office key. They probably put more effort into getting me up to speed than they ever recouped from my help.
I think this makes it hard to do good volunteer IT work. Much IT work benefits greatly from low turnover, as opposed to picking up garbage in a park, where turnover rate probably is irrelevant.
So I guess my advice is to avoid talking up your usefulness to the people you're trying to help, until you're sure you'll have the interest and free time to really stick with it. On the other hand, even IT people can still pick up garbage in the park.
Motivation (Score:2)
tons of opportunities out there (Score:5, Insightful)
I've posted a number of times on this topic. It's a good way to get tech skills and references if you are in school or just out of school and need experience.
Start googling groups in you community.
No kill animal shelters need people to maintain donor databases and websites. As do public radio stations. Non-profit recycling centers/thrift stores often need people to wipe and reload computers (and make sure they have the right licenses). Low income schools need tech instructors.
I've done the tech instructor gig and the thrift store gig over the years. As far as time goes, volunteers are often given large amounts of flexibility. After all, you are not getting paid.
You should check out the organization carefully, interview them per se. Make sure they are serious and high quality. Don't let them dump all their work on you.
If you are doing it for the resume avoid anything too closely tied with political, religous or controversial topics. As the joke goes, explaining why you did volunteer work for the North American Marlon Brando Look-alikes Association may be embarrassing.
HTH
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No kill animal shelters need people to maintain donor databases and websites. As do public radio stations.
One big thing I notice is that small nonprofits seem to create their own own donor database systems. I'd think that this would be a good opportunity for a free software project to fill the need, or if such a project exists, to take it and customize/generalize it for certain classes of nonprofits -- e.g., there are lots of animal shelters around the country; a dog is a dog and a cat is a cat everywhere; one would think a single donor database system would serve a significant portion of the needs of many of
NOSI (Score:2)
refurb and donate computers (Score:2, Interesting)
Help people with data collection/reporting setups (Score:5, Interesting)
My local needle exchange [homelessyo...liance.org] (don't start flaming, they're people volunteering their time to improve the health of their fellow citizens, regardless of what you think of drug use or how best to respond to it) has a couple of contracts with City and State health departments that they need to do a lot of data reporting for (how many clients, how many referrals, etc) which they were collecting slowly and tediously using paper records, then wasting even more time on every three months collating the data to send to the funder. I wrote them a simple php frontend to a mysql database to let them enter data as they go, which then automatically generates the quarterly data files they need to submit to funders, freeing them up to concentrate more on service delivery (and giving them a better sense of how their service was running as a nice side effect).
Most non-profits I've seen in the past five years are using woeful data collection methods; almost any of them would be eternally grateful if someone would spend a few days or weeks to set something up and then maintained it on a volunteer basis.
On a shameless plug note, the abovementioned non-profit needs a new home for its 1U server - if you're in the San Francisco bay area and can donate rackspace & connectivity, drop me a line.
Re:Help people with data collection/reporting setu (Score:2)
Drop a line to bill at thclinic dot org and I will see what I can do.
Old People (Score:2, Insightful)
Culture Shock (Score:2, Informative)
Also, think about installing (and maintaining!) QuickBooks or some other accounting package. The key to helping them is to always keep in mind that you are not dealing with computer specialists. Keep it s
Computers for classrooms (Score:2, Informative)
In UK... (Score:2, Informative)
Oblig Joker Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oblig Joker Quote (Score:5, Interesting)
If your good at something never do it for free.
I can't even begin to comprehend that idea.
Seriously. If I'm good at something, it's likely because I've put a lot of time and effort into perfecting it. If I've put a lot of time and effort into perfecting it, it's likely because I enjoy doing it. If I enjoy doing it, then I will do it every chance I can get.
I'm a software developer because I love doing it. I get paid to do it, but I also do it in some of my spare time for free, and I'll happily do it for others who want me to do it for them.
I also play guitar for free, fly planes for free, and have sex for free.
Re:Oblig Joker Quote (Score:5, Funny)
And that is why sometimes you shouldn't take advice from comic book villains.
Re:Oblig Joker Quote (Score:4, Interesting)
In that case, you should do it somewhere you will get paid and then you can donate the money to the charity.
That is much more efficient than donating your skills to a charity. The assumption of course, is that a business can make better use of your skills than a charity - or, in other words, if you are a high priced SAP consultant, you are better off earning $300 for an hours work and donating that money to get some PHP dev to work for the charity.
It is just the principle of 'comparative advantage'.
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But if I already do it somewhere where I get paid (which I do), and it's something I enjoy doing, and the charity can use my actual skills (I'm a developer, not an SAP consultant), then it makes much more sense for me to keep my money and donate my time. The charity gets expensive skills for free, and can therefore use their funds elsewhere, and I get additional opportunities to do what I enjoy, and I can spend my paycheque on myself.
Which is not to say I can't also donate some of my pay to charity, which I
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Some of us enjoy programming but hate picking up trash. If it goes to benefit someone else and it's worth it to you, why not do it for free?
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"If your good at something never do it for free."
Obviously one thing 'your' not good at is grammar.
Re:Oblig Joker Quote (Score:5, Informative)
So not true.
http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/taxes/deductions.shtml#q2
Company Sponsored Pro-bono work (Score:2)
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My company is starting to sponsor 1 to 6 months paid breaks to do your regular work for NGO non-profits. For me that would be IT work. Normally if I donate labor it would be habitat for humanity as a worker drone. But do they or others need volunteer IT support?
GeekCorps [geekcorps.org], my friend. See the world and make yourself useful. In fact, it would make sense to have your company talk to Geekcorps and to organise staff in groups to collaborate on a given project, in order to ensure continuity and ongoing support.
Anyway, they do good work.
Your local animal shelter is a good spot (Score:5, Informative)
I helped the local Humane Society get their records modernized using Animal Shelter Manager (http://sheltermanager.sourceforge.net/home.php). The sysadmin there was feeling a bit out of his depth with setting up the SQL database and such. It was easy work, and made a real tangible difference. I love these sort of freebies too, where there is a task with a clear end.
1) I installed the software.
2) Installed and configured the mySQL on their little server.
3) Got the tables setup
4) Trained the sysadmin on what I'd done and how to maintain/backup the system
5) Got the software installed on the desktops with his help
6) Backed out of the picture
7) No Profit
Sheldon
Check out small NPOs (Score:2)
MatchIT (Score:2)
If you're in Canada, check out MatchIT [imaginecanada.ca]. If you're in the UK, try IT4Communities [it4communities.org.uk].
I don't know if there are similar sites for other countries.
Re:MatchIT -- Addendum (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, if you're in another country, why not put your time into organizing something similar to MatchIT and IT4Communities.
Yeah. Donate your old computers to Namibian kids (Score:2)
I'm trying to get old computers for kids in Namibia high schools and a friend and myself bought a kindergarden over there. I should be going back in 2 months to check on them. If you're interested in helping, send me a note.
Here are some photos of the preschool and the computers sent off to the high school.
Kids in preschool:
http://web.mac.com/zav/iWeb/Zav-O-Matic/Namibia%202008/D3A0AB87-8276-4741-8F1B-9225C7F23CF7.html [mac.com]
Computers:
http://web.mac.com/zav/iWeb/Zav-O-Matic/Off%20to%20Africa.html [mac.com]
The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) program (Score:4, Informative)
Vietnam Opportunities Exist Right Now (Score:2, Informative)
I am helping lead an initiative for a non-profit to install computer labs in 60 schools in Vietnam starting this year. This will impact about 10,000 kids and 1,200 teachers.
As of two weeks ago, Vietnam has announced that they will be going 100% open source by next year. I am looking for anybody who has interest and experience in Linux/BSD/FOSS who can build machines, train, help develop curricula, build infrastructure (Web, Mail, DNS, VPN, file sharing (NFS, Samba), etc.) and even do some software developme
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Website Design for charities (Score:2)
Work + donate (Score:2)
I hope this doesn't come across as cynical, because it's not meant to be. But one very reasonable strategy is to work hard at your regular job, and donate money to charitable causes.
I've often thought about how to put my software engineering skills to good use, and that's the best I've been able to come up with. If you can't find a great outlet to directly put your skills to use at a charitable organization, this is a pretty reasonable proxy. It lets you do what you do best, for the people that find it most
How about a volunteer-oriented social network? (Score:2)
I like volunteering. A while back I started a group (friend/friend's friends/etc.) that would go out on Saturdays and help out.
A major problem, though, was finding places to volunteer. Really the only place we found to reliably volunteer was at a couple of foodbanks (always happy to have people sort cans, etc.). Which is great, but quite dull to be doing every weekend.
Obviously, there are lots of other places/people who could use some help, but since they only need it sporadically there is no way to
Look no farther then... (Score:2)
Your local public School. Leave your FOOS/Closed Source prejudices at the door and just help.
My son is in elementary school, and let me tell you these people need all the help they can get. Even if is nothing more then cracking open a printer to clear some scotch tape out of the works or making sure some teachers machine is connected to the correct printer, every little bit helps.
If you can commit to even a few hours a week head to the local middle school or high school and be a proctor, trust me the teac
Basic Stuff (Score:2)
Really basic stuff--certainly far beneath your capabilities and/or interests, but so important:
1) If a group has computers, volunteer to keep them patched, updated, and malware-free. Teach someone to do the same.
2) If a group needs a Web presence, offer to set them up with a blog or simple CMS. Commit to keep it updated and invader-free. Teach someone to do the same. Teach someone to update it/post to it.
3) Teach some office-related skills--word processor, spreadsheet, yadda--in a friendly, non-judgmental w
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Not today... (Score:2)
Local Volunteer Fire Department (Score:4, Informative)
Donate your time. (Score:2, Insightful)
Robotics mentor (Score:2, Interesting)
I am experienced in this (Score:2)
I did 6 years very part time.
Some points I noted at the end of it were:
1) The community org themselves provide a service. I found the expectations of those recieving services expected bank level IT infrastucture("Have you got my reciept dated 5 years ago?).
2) Community org = clients often disadvataged due to health issues. Hence, it will become your responsibility to provide strong, secure databases.
3) Political. Once c
Just commit a patch? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry to take exception to a key tennant of open source theory, but I just don't think its so simple to 'just' commit a patch.
I see contributing to a project as involving a significant commitment. In my thinking, high quality patches require the developer to have a fairly high level of understanding of the internals of the project and the local coding conventions. If the contributor doesn't have this, the patch will need significant rework from someone who does, or the codebase will get ugly fast.
If I'm being too much of a perfectionist please tell me.
I'm a software developer who'd love to contribute to some of the major projects, but I see the personal commitment to positive effect ratio as prohibitive.
I Hack Charities (Score:2, Informative)
Portable apps are handy here (Score:4, Informative)
Some useful sites I've found are:
Using mostly these sites, I've come up with a very useful collection of apps and utilities totalling under 2Gb, which easily fits on a flash drive with room to spare for data. One example is winaudit [pxserver.com], which will generate an extensive report when run on a pc. You can save the reports on various pcs to your flash drive in various formats (pdf, html, text, csv), bring them home, and go over them in more detail to see what needs to be fixed or updated on the various pcs you encountered.
FIRST Robotics (Score:2)
I'd recommend joining a group at a local school for a year or so before starting your own group, but there's plenty of opportunity out there.
If anyone want to do some programming (Score:2)
I do the computers for an organization of group homes for developmentally disabled people (www.wingspanlife.org), basically keep them running and patched.
They have some critical needs to put things that require recurrent paperwork on the net so that administration time can be cut, and to possibly avoid errors. Basically everything from time sheets to medication logs, simple forms that are tallied, reports generated, and the usual light duty stuff.
The problem is HIPPA and related patient privacy laws. It has
Theater tech (Score:2)
Your local Public Library (Score:2, Insightful)
I am willing to bet that your local Public Library would be most welcoming to the concept of pro-bono tech support for their most likely ageing/not updated/not virus protected public computer terminals as well as some TLC for their network infrastructure. Many Public Libraries have been forced drastically scale back their services to the public. Offering up your time to help them keep their systems running/patched/protected and their network functional would be a huge help to them.
I have, over the past te
IT Volunteers Worlwide (Score:2)
Actually a new organization is currently being developed for just such a purpose: http://itvolunteersworldwide.org/ [itvoluntee...ldwide.org]
Currently there is a LinkedIn group http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1181337 [linkedin.com] you can go to for more info.
no shit sherlock !! (Score:2)
Re:School (Score:5, Interesting)
Anybody interested in going this route, as I have, can get a Linux distro targeted towards children (3yrs and up) that runs well on donated second hand PCs.
http://www.quinncoincorporated.org/ [quinncoincorporated.org]
We are currently helping others across the country setup their own local initiatives.
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As an aside, anybody with experience customizing Ubuntu Live/Install CDs, we can use your help. Contact email is on the website.
Re:Service Day? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a very valid point. Forcing people to do "volunteer" work is ridiculous. It has the opposite effect that is desired. It makes people hate to help others because it is forced. It is counter-productive to force high-school kids to do menial tasks and call it volunteer work.
However, when you have a certain skill set, such as programming or fixing computers, etc... and you help out people who genuinely need it it is extremely rewarding.
I found this out when tutoring people in college. Of course I did it for money, but I found out that I genuinely enjoyed helping people and now do it for free.
I find this call by Obama and Rahm Emanuel towards "national service" very troubling. His constant call for "sacrifice" and "serving" gets me worried. Instead of holding the people accountable for creating this financial mess we're just expected to become wards of the state. Was Aldous Huxley right when he said people will love their servitude? I sure hope not.
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People do love servitude because they hate freedom and responsibility.
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I think the goal is just to make a time where it is more socially acceptably and when people are encouraged to do volunteer work. Many people might have a slight interest, or be unsure of how to get involved, so maybe this day will make that easier, and make them realize how to volunteer more o
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For what it's worth, most of the inaugural festivities are paid for by Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee, which is funded by private donations not tax dollars.
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For what it's worth, most of the inaugural festivities are paid for by Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee, which is funded by private donations not tax dollars
FWIW, that's not true - the bulk is coming from tax payer dollars.