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Archive for the ‘Social Missions’ Category

Ethiopian Kids Go From Illiterate to Hackers in 5 Months

Kids are smart. Much, much smarter than we give them credit for. Most kids have an inherent curiosity, a craving for knowledge and a greater patience with the learning process than most adults. And curiosity is the most powerful force in education.

That was the hope of the non-profit OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project, an organization that provides educational resources to kids in the poorest communities. For this particular project, they shipped a box full of Android tablets to a rural village in Ethiopia. The town was illiterate. The kids had no concept of written language. Yet they were suddenly gifted a box of English-language tablets. No instructions, no instructor, just a powerful device.

The old axiom tells us that teaching a man to fish is better than giving him a fish. But what about giving the man a fishing pole? OLPC wanted to see how well these kids would perform if they simply had access to better tools. Would the kids’ curiosity be enough?

The answer was yes, but to a much greater degree than anyone expected. These kids went from having never seen the printed word to accessing hidden and disabled features on the tablet in months.

It’s an amazing story, but kind of a bittersweet one. There is limitless potential inside kids who haven’t yet had access to education and millions more who will never have access to education. There aren’t many causes as noble as providing that access.

For more information on OLPC, visit laptop.org.

Category:

Education, People, Science/Technology, Social Missions

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Barrel Decorating For Charity

Every November, the staff at Bookbyte breaks into groups to compete in a food drive. Each team gets a giant metal barrel and gets a short amount of time to decorate it according to a theme. Then we stuff the decorated barrels with as much food as we can scrounge up and donate it to the Marion-Polk Food Share, a charity that feeds the needy in our community of central Oregon.

The theme this year was the 1980s. As you can see from the pics below,  the first thing most of us thought about was 8-bit video games. (Click on any of the pictures for a larger image.)

A mock arcade cabinet for Donkey Kong made with cardboard and a metal barrel.

1. An impressive Donkey Kong arcade machine using cardboard, paint, and LED lights, complete with buttons and a joystick.

A Pac=Man themed barrel, with added references to Ferris Bueller and other distinctly '80s pop culture references.

2. This Pac-Man themed barrel packed in as many ’80s references as it could. You’ll notice Ferris Bueller, Ghostbusters, MTV, ALF, and other stuff that people born after 1990 might not recognize.

3. If we’re talking classic 80′s videogames, you can’t overlook Super Mario Bros., the elephant in whichever room you’ve setup your NES.

4. This entry was most tightly tied into actual purpose of the contest: fighting hunger. Most of our younger readers probably don’t remember “We Are the World.” It was a song written for charity by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie and featuring something like 8,000 other musicians. It was a huge deal at the time.
Feed the World barrel.

5. Our grand prize winners painted trash bags and boxes and made them into a homage to the greatest ’80s action star, the former Governor of California. (As somebody point out, it mostly looks like a Minecraft version of the Terminator.)

Those glasses aren’t painted on either, they’re hanging off his face. When you take them off, you get to see the T-800′s red robo-eye.

Category:

Bookbyte Stuff, Social Missions

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Giving Back: The Marion-Polk Food Share

Around here we love giving back and supporting the community right here in Salem.

One organization we’ve been happy to partner with is the Marion-Polk Food Share. Each year they are able to distribute over 7.6 million pounds of food to those in need in the Willamette Valley. They run and facilitate several programs that help and support the community.  Some of their programs include a community kitchen where they provide cooking classes and serve meals to those in need. They provide support to children and senior citizens through various programs as well. Working with local prisons and jails, they grow gardens for food production.  This program helps provide food for the Food Share and agricultural skills to the inmates. These skills are often used to find future employment.

The last two years Bookbyte has held a companywide food drive during the month of November. As a company we were able to donate over 6,000 pounds of food each year! Knowing our donations help our neighbors and friends in need, make them more a little more special and meaningful.  We’re grateful to partner with the Marion-Polk Food Share and to join them in making a difference here in Oregon.

Below are some images from their warehouse.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/yourfoodshare

What local organizations and charities do you enjoy donating to and volunteering with? Let us know in the comments.

Category:

Social Missions

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