[sf-lug] raising funds for OLPC through micro-donations

[Sameer Verma]

Hi SF-LUG'ers,

I am writing to you as the faculty advisor for Information Management
Systems Association (IMSA), a student organization on SF State campus
and their micro-donation drive for OLPC. The plan is to collect $199
towards a GNU/Linux powered XO laptop for some lucky kid somewhere on
the globe! So, we started with the goal of one laptop, but got enough
for 2.34 laptops, and are hoping to push it to 3 laptops worth at
least.

As most of you know, this year, you can donate $399 towards two OLPC
XO laptops, where you get one back and the other goes to some child in
an under-developed nation. Pretty cool if you want to be seen in
public with a strange green laptop! Between the gecko-powered browser
(there's Firefox too, if you really, really want it) and the terminal,
most of my professional needs are satisfied. To add to all that, this
machine suspends and resumes in about 700ms flat! That alone borders
on trickery, but I digress.

If you're not the type who likes undue public attention though, you
can simply donate $199 and one laptop will go to a child somewhere and
you get karma points!  If you missed the pictures of these laptops in
use, see them all at http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc

IMSA has come up with a micro-donation drive, where they are
collecting -any- amount, and when it adds up to $199, they will donate
it to OLPC towards an OLPC XO laptop. So, if you're feeling generous,
but not quite in the $199 range, visit IMSA's page (links below) and
donate whatever you can. They'll take cash, check and credit cards via
Paypal. For check or cash, we could maybe collect at one of the
meetings. You can write to Chas Yen, President IMSA (cyen at sfsu.edu) or
simply reply to me (sverma at sfsu.edu) and we'll work something out.

So maybe skip a cup of coffee or that suspect muffin at 4pm, and pass
along the cheer towards a great cause. http://imsa.sfsu.edu/olpc
(warning: Flash infested) or http://imsa.sfsu.edu/olpcdonate (Paypal
links).

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/