Dear IT friends and colleagues,
Call for volunteers and donations: IT people for disaster relief
IT Saving Lives: Delivering Efficiency and Connection Where It Matters!
I write to appeal for your contribution and support to the relief effort for the recent natural disasters in Asia, the Sichuan Earthquake and Myanmar Cyclone. IT can save lives! We seek your contribution not only in donation but also your expertise to help ongoing relief and rebuild efforts as an IT volunteer.
Relief.Asia is an online platform which was developed in the wake of the Myanmar Cyclone and Sichuan Earthquake Disaster that tore through the region in May, 2008. The website was deployed as a tool and platform to drive awareness and community contribution towards the rebuilding of nature-savaged regions such as Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Sichuan, through the application of Information Technology.
While we mourn for the victims, we can get involved by contributing financially (http://donate.relief.asia) or volunteering (http://volunteer.relief.asia) your time to relief efforts in Asia. We could even help out by simply spreading the news about Relief.Asia's (http://support.relief.asia) existence! For further details, please read the information enclosed or visit http://www.relief.asia.
Allow me to express our heartfelt thanks in advance for your support and our sincere condolence to the victims and their families.
Sin Chung Kai
Legislative Councilor (IT)
Edmon Chung
CEO, DotAsia
Charles Mok
Chairman, Internet Society Hong Kong
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Become an IT volunteer
We can contribute ourselves in addition to monetary donations. Same as the rescue experts and the medical profession, we shall leverage our professional knowledge and expertise when it matters most.
Sahana, is a free and open source disaster management system, which integrated various set of web-based disaster management applications that provide solutions to large-scale humanitarian problems in the aftermath of disasters, e.g. missing person registry, relief organization registry, request management system, camp registry, volunteer management, inventory management and GIS situation awareness. Sahana was initiated by volunteers around Asia. What we need now is a group of volunteers who are able to contribute to the relief work by contributing their time and IT effort on the Sahana development initiatives, such as:
- to add a Chinese language option for the Sahana system to help on the relief work for Sichun Earthquake;
- to submit bug fixes of the system
- to submit new features as patches
- to help on the documentation, packaging, etc
Required skill set for IT volunteers: PHP,MySQL, HTML, CSS knowledge
To register as an IT volunteer under the Relief.Asia initiative, please signup at:
http://volunteer.relief.asia.
Donation – every little bits counts!
Food, clear water, medicine are immediate necessities to the relief work. But communication infrastructure and equipments are also important for rebuilding the victims’ home and communities.
Through the online donation gateway (http://donate.relief.asia) provided by Relief.Asia, 15% of your donation will be used for activities directed by Relief.Asia, including provision of IT infrastructure supporting relief work and rebuild efforts, especially on supporting education and digital inclusion. 85% of the donation will go to the charitable organization of your choice for general relief support.
Note: also that tax deduction receipt for your donation is only applicable for the 85% of your donation. You will receive an email after we receive your donation with further instructions to retrieve your donation receipt for tax deduction purposes.Help to spread the cause with Relief.Asia Buttons
We need your network to spread the word and build awareness about disaster relief efforts in Asia among the Internet community. Relief.Asia buttons offer a simple way to do so. It's easy and free for everyone to use. Just follow these quick steps to get the buttons to display on your web site and blogs. By doing so, you'll be able to contribute meaningfully to the relief efforts with minimal amount of effort.
Just follow these quick steps at: http://support.relief.asia to get started!