I know, I put a little note in MSDN Flash about GiveCamp, telling everyone to check here. Well, here's a quick update: we're coming down the final stretch on getting the time, place and registration in place. This will be in place by the end of the week, I hope.
What is GiveCamp?
It's a full weekend where IT professionals donate their time and talent to local charities, helping these charities with their IT needs. As you can imaging, charitable organizations tend to run pretty lean and they depend heavily on volunteers for a bunch of stuff, including IT, and they have many of the same needs as every other customer that we work with. But ... on a lean budget, they really cannot afford to hire folks ... again, they depend on volunteers. GiveCamp reaches out to local charities and asks them to submit proposals for projects that they need done. We then match the projects to the IT folks with the talent they need. The IT folks/developers from the community then work on the project and make it happen.
Why on earth would I do this?
Yeah, I know, you aren't getting cold hard cash. But ... you are getting something more. You get to give back to your community, help make your community a better place and have a positive impact on the lives of other people. It's incredible. It's amazing. You come out of it with a sense of accomplishment that you really don't get with any other project. You know that you've done something bigger than yourself. How do I know this? Well, I participated in the We Are Microsoft event in Dallas ... this is the "renamed" second rev. I also participated in a project called KatrinaSafe a couple of years ago. I simply cannot put into words how fortunate I was to be a part of both of those. KatrinaSafe, in particular ... wow. So ... it's well worth the time. And it's good for your soul in addition to being a heck of a lot of fun. Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot. There will awards for the best solutions too.
What do you need?
Well, sponsors for one. It'll be a full weekend and we'll need sponsors for those things that developers need ... caffeine, food, snacks, etc. Also, donations of prizes for the top developers/teams. And donations of software/components for the projects. We'll be pretty open to any and all help we can get. If you are interested, contact me using the form here on this site.
I'm a charity and I need help!!!
Awesome! We'd love to hear from you. Charities will be able to register on the site when it gets up. You'll also be able to submit your projects. It'd be good for you to go ahead and start getting things together ... what do you need? What are your goals? We'll be looking for project proposals to help us get the right folks matched to you. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, again, using the form on this web site.