Friends

I wanted to say a huge thank you to Novy and Reece for sharing my post on LinkedIn with their community.  I also want to say a thank you to Kenny, Andrew and Tony for taking the message to their company and their connections to see if there is hardware out there for schools.  The reality is that we are very fortunate in technology companies and have refresh programs that ensure our hardware does not become obsolete. This is partially to keep up with the rate that technology is advancing and also partially because fast hardware keeps us, nerds, happy.  Being a huge nerd and geek I am grateful for this and I would be more grateful if they could also benefit our local schools and children.

Donations

I hate to admit it but I have no idea what is going to happen if people start sending me hardware.  While I am waiting for all of this hardware I haven’t been idle though, make no mistake about that. I’ve reached out to my lawyer about starting a charity to handle this, which is apparently quite involved and can be costly and he advised against it.  It looks like a non-profit is easier to set up and does not require as much maintenance so that might be the best route forward.  It will mean no tax receipt however.  

I’m also chasing down a few other leads, my friend Dave suggested FreeGeek might be able to help with this.  I’m waiting to hear back from them to see if they are already geared up for a school donation program in anticipation of all the computers that I’m going to need to re-route.  I have also reached out to the Burnaby School District and have been in contact with the principal at my son’s school as well.

The short story is: I’ll figure it out, don’t let that be a blocker if you have some good hardware to donate.  

That being said I think the best path going forward is to talk to your local IT department and legal department to see if they can help with the process.  When I spoke with my friend Kenny at Electronic Arts they said that they were already looking into this, proud of those folks. If I hear back about that and can share the details I will.

In Salesforce we have a program for this, which is what started me asking around initially.  I thought it was a great idea and wanted to see what other people were doing. The program is very well used however asking around a bit more I’ve found out is that we do this south of the border but there might be an opportunity in Canada that we are missing out on.  I’m talking to Drew and Khari in our IT department to see how we can get this moving here. I am very excited that we might have a chance to help out some local schools with this and if I hear anything back that would help someone else I’ll share it.

School Love

The big opportunity here is to take an opportunity to look at your local school and be grateful for the teachers, administration, IT workers, groundskeepers and cleaning staff that help keep these buildings up for the children.  If you don’t have children then take a moment or two to thank them for providing the education that will fuel the next round of Unicorns in silicon valley, or develop the biotech that helps you live longer and healthier. These are the people that are truly shaping the future of our world, let’s give them some love.