MVP Invites for Africa

Michael has just reminded me that I have 3 MSDN Premium Subscription with Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite invites that I need to find a good use for. As tempting as it may be to organize a Winter of Express - Extension Writing competition ;), I have decided to do something more constructive with my invites.

I'm thinking of organizing an auction along the same lines as the one Julia Lerman did for Banda Aceh. My father is currently involved in the setting up a pump workshop in Malawi. The pumps they will be manufacturing are made from ABS plastic and are virtually indestructible. The only perishable part is a rubber valve which commonly lasts for 3 years and a replacement can be cut from an old tire. The focus is very much on appropriate technology.

The workshop will bring work to the local community and clean water to villages all over Malawi. The founder of the charity that is setting up the workshop has agreed to pay all administrative overheads (air fairs, travel etc) so that any money donated goes directly to the workshop and the manufacture of pumps. You can find more information about the charity here.

If you are an MVP that would in principle be willing to donate an invite, please comment or drop me a note. Not commitment yet, I'm just canvassing people to see if you think it's a good idea. I know the subscription you get from the invite is not for resale, but I couldn't find any restriction on auctioning the invite card itself. It could potentially raise a lot of money for something very worthwhile.

Here's a video about a similar workshop that was established Madagascar.

5 Comments

  • I'm in!

    Roy

  • If it works in South Africa then count me in.

    And my compliments to your father: I know first-hand just how much his work will mean to the average Malawian ...

    -- rowan

  • Wow! I could not even guess about it)) Not bad.

  • Wonderful post. I learned many interesting things. Thank you)

  • After you left, the Sharepoint presentation wasn't any betetr but that might also have been due to the fact that the general interest level for that specific technology isn't so great. The presenter was however a lot more enthusiastic than the other 2 (maybe a little over-enthusiastic as he tended to go a bit over the top without being very clear; but hey I guess that's not really something that bad ). The final presentation held by the same guy (Ciprian Jichici) was however excellent and almost compensated for the fact that it came at the end. People were really getting into it and it even ended with applauses. Basically it was about C# 3.0 (now with lambda functions and other very cool stuff inside), and also about Linq and the next-gen ADO.NET object-relational mapping stuff. What those things will accomplish is preaty great by itself but the presentation was really good too, also very enthusiastic but a lot more focused with an excellent background/ putting into perspective intro.

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