philanthropy
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Jeff Bezos plans to give most of his money to charity
Jeff Bezos says he'll give most of his money to charity, but will that do much to appease critics of his legacy?
Bezos family launches $2 billion philanthropy fund
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who happens to be the richest person on the planet, has launched a philanthropic effort with an initial commitment of $2 billion. He and his wife MacKenzie will use the Day One Fund to build a "network of new, non-profit, tier-one preschools in low-income communities" and fund "existing non-profits that help homeless families."
UNICEF recruits gamers to mine cryptocurrency for Syrian kids
UNICEF has launched a new fund-raising project in the same vein as SETI@Home and Einstein@home, but with a cryptocurrency spin. In an effort to raise money for the children in war-torn Syria, the organization is asking gamers, eSports fans and anybody with powerful graphics cards in their computers for help in mining Ethereum. It's calling the new project "Game Chaingers," and joining it is as easy as going to its website, giving it a few details about your system so it can configure the mining software and installing that software to your PC.
Child’s Play is giving joy and gaming carts to more children’s hospitals
If you're at a children's hospital next year, the chances of seeing one of the Gamers Outreach Foundation's (GOF) signature Go Karts are pretty high. The all-in-one rolling gaming rigs have proved quite popular in the 25 facilities that currently have them. Now Child's Play, one of gaming's longest-running philanthropies, wants to help GOF founder Zach Wigal realize his dream of comforting as many hospitalized kids as possible through video games. "I think this is the start of us making a very serious push into having Go Karts in every [children's] hospital in the US," Wigal told Engadget. And with roughly 273 children's hospitals in the US, closing the gap is far from impossible.
Jeff Bezos crowdsources ideas for his philanthropy
It's no secret that Jeff Bezos has made a massive amount of money from Amazon, so much so that he's the second richest man in the world according to Bloomberg. And now, he's ready to give his money away -- and wants you to help tell him how.
Snap Inc. quietly created a foundation to support arts and education
We've known for a while that Snap Inc. confidentially filed for an IPO, but the official paperwork (also known as the S-1) is out and full of juicy new details. In addition to insight on how many people use Snapchat on the daily and how much ad revenue the company has brought in, the document also confirmed the company's philanthropic ambitions.
Netflix chief starts a $100 million education fund
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings may plan to make a lot of money in the near future, but he's also bent on giving some of that money away, too. He's starting up the Hastings Fund, a $100 million money pool that will contribute to education. While the first donations are modest ($1.5 million for the United Negro College Fund and Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley), there's talk of more -- and establishing the fund shows this won't be the end of his philanthropic efforts.
Vodafone's network in a backpack connects people after natural disasters
Vodafone Foundation (the carrier's philantrophic arm) has launched a 24-pound mobile network in a backpack to help folks contact family and friends in the wake of a disaster. The device called the Instant Network Mini may be relatively small, but it provides a 2G GSM connection capable of handling thousands of text messages and five calls made at once to people within a 328-foot radius. It's equipped with a GSM base transceiver that uses satellite connection to link up to a host network. Vodafone developed the Mini as a smaller version of its 220-pound "portable" network with help from its Spanish division, Huawei and non-government org Télécoms Sans Frontières. The Foundation's been lugging the much bigger device to relief operations in the name of its Instant Network Programme. In fact, during Vodafone's mission to the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan, two 220-pound kits handled a total of 1.4 million text messages and 443,288 calls within 29 days. Obviously, the larger machine has a wider operating radius (3 miles), but the Mini has its own set of pros. Since it can be deployed within minutes and be carried on planes, it can potentially help more people -- and more quickly, too.
Bill Gates weighs in on the new Microsoft, philanthropy and leaping over chairs
Bill Gates plays bridge, washes dishes each night and prefers In-N-Out to McDonald's and Burger King (as any sane person would). The Gates Foundation chairman offered up those tidbits and more in another Reddit AMA today, an hour-long dialogue that unearthed a few gems. Let's consider the Microsoft situation. We already knew Gates would play a more prominent role in the company now that Satya Nadella is running the show, and he confirmed that he's going to spend about one-third of his time on "product work" for the company. Pretty vague stuff, but he clarified just a bit: "I make sure we pick ambitious scenarios and that we have a strong architecture to deliver on them. I encourage good work (hopefully)."
Google Glass project tackles poverty, other real world problems
Image from charity: water taken with Glass It has flown over San Francisco, adorned the faces of runway models and most recently taken a road trip across the US. Now Google's already iconic wearable computer is taking a more altruistic journey with five non-profit organizations. Starting today, a small selection of Google Giving partners will begin using Glass to help them achieve their organizations' missions and "tackle some complex challenges." It's unclear exactly what the groups will do with Glass, but Google says they will use the device in their daily work to "bring more transparency to philanthropy, and close the gap between donors and the people they support." Participating organizations include The World Wildlife Fund; Samasource, which offers enterprise data services to poor women and youth; Give Directly, an organization with a web-based solution for connecting donors to individual households in Kenya; the all-purpose youth-focused Do Something!; and charity: water, which concentrates on clean water initiatives. Still in early development, the device's cost and lack of functionality have proved prohibitive, and a few socially inconsiderate early adopters have inspired the term glasshole. While Glass is hardly in need of a PR facelift, the Giving Through Glass initiative should shed some light on the wearable's more practical applications.
Apple has donated over $65 million to Product Red for AIDS research
Say what you will about Apple's business practices, but its philanthropy work is hard to discount. Cupertino has raised over $65 million for Product Red's fight against AIDS since 2006, the charity tweeted today. The announcement comes from the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting, where the male half of Bonoprah took the stage, commenting that the tech giant "is certainly leading the crew" in terms of donations to the effort -- something that should speak much louder than a broken click wheel ever will.
Charlie Rose interviews 'Bill Gates 2.0' on 60 Minutes: the man after Microsoft
Last night's 60 Minutes gave a solid block of screen time to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, with a focus on his efforts to tackle preventable diseases through the Gates Foundation. The show looked at how the Foundation is using the ethos of a technology company to meet humanitarian challenges, such as its recent plumbing-free toilet competition to improve sanitation around the world, and the development of a thermos that can keep 200 vaccines cool for 50 days using a single block of ice. Separately, Gates also spoke about the late Steve Jobs and how the two men effectively "grew up together" as rivals. 60 Minutes interviewer Charlie Rose noted that Gates will "long be remembered" for his philanthropy, whereas Jobs "did not have time to do that." There are two excerpts from the show after the break, but we can't guarantee how well they'll work on mobile devices so you may want to go straight to the source links below.
Apple and Starbucks team up for Product (Red) gift cards
Starbucks is partnering with (Red) and offering an eGift basket that'll help those living with HIV/AIDS. Each basket includes a $15 gift certificate for Starbucks and a $15 gift certificate to iTunes. For every eGift basket sold, Starbucks and iTunes will contribute 5 percent of the purchase price to the Global Fund, an international agency that helps prevent and treat diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. You can purchase one of these eGifts on a page dedicated to the promotion.
GameFly to begin publishing smartphone apps, will launch its own Android game store
Having already made headway into the digital frontier last year, video game subscription service GameFly is now ready to expand its sphere of influence into the world of mobile. The company's aspiring for greatness, announcing this morning that it plans to begin publishing iOS and Android titles as early as this summer. And that's not all, folks: we can expect to see the GameFly GameStore, a gaming-oriented competitor to the Play Store and Amazon AppStore, sometime this fall. In addition to its goal of being the biggest and baddest kid on the block, GameFly intends to don the role of philanthropist, setting aside a fund to assist struggling devs who might just need a few extra bucks to finish the next mobile masterpiece. If you fall in this category, the company's already accepting submissions, so read through the press release below to get all the necessary details.
Apple retail to mark World AIDS Day by spotlighting PRODUCT (RED)
According to ifoAppleStore.com, Apple will be spotlighting (PRODUCT) RED items in its stores on December 1 to mark World AIDS Day. A percentage of proceeds from the (PRODUCT) RED line, which Apple launched in 2006, is donated to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa. Sources indicate that Apple Store employees will be wearing and/or promoting the red iPod nano, and employees carrying iPads will have red Smart Covers on them. Apple is also expected to promote its RED iTunes gift card and a set of Beats by Dre headphones that are also part of the RED initiative. At the same time, Mophie is also launching a line of RED products, including a new version of the red Juice Pack Air which has been available for some time now. As of this writing Apple is already promoting the red Smart Cover on its website; clicking links to buy the Smart Cover took me directly to the page for the (PRODUCT) RED version. Apple has stated that "(PRODUCT) RED has generated more than $170 million for the Global Fund" since its 2006 introduction, and "up to 50 percent of gross profits" from (PRODUCT) RED sales go to the Global Fund.
Intel's Skoool software brings study materials to healthcare workers in developing countries
When we consider Intel's contributions to developing nations, it's hard not to hone in on the 5 million-plus Classmate PCs it's shipped over the past four years. This time, at least, Intel is leaving the hardware part of the equation to the Lenovos and HPs of the world and focusing on the software instead. The company just announced the Skoool Healthcare Education platform, a collection of online and offline educational materials designed to help healthcare workers in developing countries better treat women and children, tackling malnutrition, vaccination, communicable diseases and childbirth safety. To be clear, Intel isn't getting into the medical content business -- it didn't write these resources but instead culled them from various third-party sources. The idea is that the company will provide the platform to governments and healthcare workers for free, forgoing what might otherwise be an opportunity to collect licensing fees. (It'll be up to local governments to work with companies like Dell to secure low-cost PCs to run the software.) For now, Intel's launching the program in Sri Lanka, where it already has a working history with the President and Minister of Health, but a rep tells us the outfit hopes to expand the program to sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Central Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, reaching 1 million healthcare workers by the end of 2015. [Image courtesy of Intel]
U2's Bono has kind words for Steve Jobs
U2's Bono has expressed thanks for Steve Jobs's "invaluable" support in fighting AIDS in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. Bono contacted the editor after The Time's Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote a link-bait column titled "The Mystery of Steve Jobs's Public Giving." In the column Sorkin seemed somewhat obsessed over the "mystery" and lack of a public record about Steve Jobs' charitable contributions. Clearly Bono wanted to set the record straight, as his letter to the editor reads: To the Editor: Re "The Mystery of Jobs's Public Giving," by Andrew Ross Sorkin (DealBook, Aug. 30): As a founder of (Product)RED, I'd like to point out that Apple's contribution to our fight against AIDS in Africa has been invaluable. Through the sale of (RED) products, Apple has been (RED)'s largest contributor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - giving tens of millions of dollars that have transformed the lives of more than two million Africans through H.I.V. testing, treatment and counseling. This is serious and significant. And Apple's involvement has encouraged other companies to step up. Steve Jobs said when we first approached him about (RED), "There is nothing better than the chance to save lives." I'm proud to know him; he's a poetic fellow, an artist and a businessman. Just because he's been extremely busy, that doesn't mean that he and his wife, Laurene, have not been thinking about these things. You don't have to be a friend of his to know what a private person he is or that he doesn't do things by halves. BONO Dublin, Sept. 1, 2011 In Sorkin's defense, the columnist obviously (and rightfully) cares about the importance of philanthropy. I too am a big supporter of the "those that have more should give more" line of thought, but to jump on a man who's notoriously private about his personal and business dealings when he's just resigned over health issues was a bit much, but then again, link bait is a powerful motivator. As for Bono's reply, at least he didn't call for Sorkin to apologize to Steve Jobs like Forbes's Eric Jackson did.
Softbank's CEO donating ¥10 billion to Japan's quake-affected region
Softbank already stepped up to the plate by offering gratis handsets to earthquake orphans following the horrific events that transpired last month, but now the outfit's CEO is doing one better. ¥10 billion will be leaving Masayoshi Son (admittedly deep) pockets in order to "support the region and people affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami," and if you're curious, that equates to just under $120 million in greenbacks. Of course, one might say that said sum is pocket change for Japan's wealthiest citizen, but he even vowed to "donate to the same cause all of his future compensation as the head of Softbank." On top of Son's personal donations, Softbank as a company will be handing over ¥1 billion, with both the man and his entity considering various channels for which the money will be distributed. We've got a feeling this is just a bit more serious than your average PR stunt, and we've no qualms handing Mr. Son the round of golf claps he so richly deserves.
The $1 PS3 and the concept of charity
Come gather round, children, and let me tell you a heartwarming story of Christmas charity. This is the story of On Ouchs, a Cambodian immigrant living in British Columbia, Canada. Ouchs decided to spend $1500 on a PlayStation 3 and games and then give it all away. But he didn't decide to give it away the normal way, by shipping it off to Child's Play or Toys for Tots or something. No, Ouchs had something different in mind.He set up an eBay auction for the PS3 for an amazingly low $1 "Buy it Now" price and then (and this is key) didn't let anyone bid on it. Instead, he set up a special web site, OneDollarPlaystation3.com, where people all over the world could "write to Santa and explain to him why you think you should be on the Good List." The deserving people that Ouchs -- I mean Santa -- deemed deserving of the coveted system would then be allowed to bid on the auction at some random, unannounced time in the future. Just picture it: hundreds of needy hopefuls trapped in front of their computers, compulsively checking for the magic auction to open just for a slim chance at the coveted system. It's beautiful, isn't it?What spurred Ouchs to such generosity? Many point to Ouchs claim that he's "a nice guy and [who wants] to make someone's Christmas a little brighter this year," as justification enough. Others point to his admission that he "want[s] to make history and, in the process, maybe make an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and other television talk shows." So great was Ouchs' selflessness that he only posted the press release about his generous offer to six different web sites.Yes, in all seriousness, Ouchs' auction will truly be a blessing to one lucky gamer this season, even if his unique method of charity smacks a little of vain opportunism. With any luck, we at Joystiq won't be put on Santa's Bad List just for poking a little fun.[Thanks Kathy]
