Triumph Cafe has been a long time friend of the Austin tech community. They have made the their space available for many local groups including the AJUG Java certification study group, the Austin Drupal Dojo, the MySQL users group. We even hosted a few of the Linux Against Poverty volunteer meetings there.

Triumph Cafe has donated several gift certificates for dinner to be used as raffle prizes for this year's donors.

All the more reason to dust off that spare computer in the closet and donate it to Linux Against Poverty!

Our friends at Cospace just offered us several one month passes for the donor's raffle. This is a perfect opportunity to enjoy a free month's coworking and use of the facilities at Cospace.

Cospace also provides a great centrally located venue with ample parking for small to medium events. GeekAustin has been using Cospace for many of it's recent events -- including MongoDB Day and it's MySQL certification class.

Each computer donated receives a raffle number which enters you in a drawing for one of the gifts -- like a month's free coworking at Cospace.

Michael at Caffe Medici just offered a quantity of gift certificates as raffle prizes for folks who donate a computer this year. Caffe Medici has locations in Clarksville and across from the UT campus. You'll frequently see me at the Clarksville location -- without a computer. Best espresso in town. period.

So, this year, you'll not only get a tax receipt for you donation, but an opportunity to win cool gifts from local Austin business.

Do you have a favorite business whom you'd like to see support Linux Against Poverty. Tell them about us, or send us a note at sponsors@linuxagainstpoverty.org

This year, local Austin businesses are providing raffle prizes for those who donate computers to Linux Against Poverty. The grand prize is a pass to SXSW Interactive 2011!
 
If everyone who joined the Linux Against Poverty Facebook group or LinkedIn group donates just one computer, we'd have enough to fill the needs through Christmas. We have over 40 of Austin's top hardware techs all set to repair and refurbish a truck-load of machines. We already have a venue for the Install Fest. All we need now are computers.

What a great way to kickoff Linux Against Poverty 2010. Rackspace Cloud has joined Linux Against Poverty as our first platinum sponsor. For those of you who didn't know, Rackspace Cloud has been aggressively supporting open source projects such as Cassandra, Drizzle, Drupal, and others. We're happy to have them as a partner for this year's event.

-Lynn

Our goal this year is to deliver $50,000 in computers to Central Texas children. If you are interested in joining us as a sponsor, please contact lynnbender@geekaustin.org

The 2010 Install Fest is on Saturday June 19th. If you are interested in joining the following teams:

• Material Handling Team
• Install Team
• Repair Team
• Salvage and Parts Team
• Intake and Evaluation Team

please join the following Google group:

http://groups.google.com/group/lap2010

A few of these teams require intermediate or advanced knowledge of computer hardware. Details can be found in the the Google group.

We'll be posting additional volunteer opportunities shortly.

-Lynn

We'll be hosting a get together for LAP 2010 volunteers this Saturday morning at Triumph Cafe. This year's goal is to collect, repair, and distribute $50K worth of computers to Central Texas children. Your ideas, suggestions, and support will help us reach that goal.

Here's the details:

Linux Against Poverty 2010 Volunteers Meeting
Date: Saturday, May 1, 2010
Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Triumph Cafe (Map)
3808 Spicewood Springs Road,Austin, TX 78759-8973

RSVP at Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113773008645616

I hope you can make it!
-Lynn

I just spoke with Greg Bodle of Union Park. Greg has graciously offered to let us use Union Park for this year's Linux Against Poverty Installfest. This is especially generous of Greg considering that we literally moved all the furniture on the first floor to make way for the install fest. (We moved it back though). Most club owners would be going "whoa! whoa! whoa!

Linux geeks moving furniture at the 2009 install fest.

Linux Against Poverty co-host, Ken Starks, just was awarded the Dewey Winburne Community Service Award at SXSW for his work with The HeliOS Project.

From the SXSW Website:
The Dewey Winburne Community Service Award celebrates the vision that technology is society's most effective tool to level the playing field between the haves and the have-nots.

I can't think of anyone more deserving of the award than Ken.

Read more at SXSW

-Lynn

Although Ken Starks and I made the decision more than a month ago, Ken has been patient while I wrap up other obligations.

We have decided that there will be a Linux Against Poverty Install Fest #2 on June 19, 2010.

For the first install fest, we set the goal of 200 computers for local children. For 2010, I'm going to set the goal at 300 computers. With 5 months to plan, I know that we can do it.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be release more details -- including signup sheets for volunteers.

I think this bears repeating. This last August, over a hundred people donated over 200 computers, over 50 volunteers refurbished and installed Linux on them. Those 200 computers went to local kids who one reason or another did not have ready access to a computer. That was our first go at it. I have no doubt that, now that we have the hang of it, we can do better this year.

Just like the first one, this event will be co-hosted by The Helios Initiative.

I'm looking forward to working with everyone again.

-Lynn

BTW, If you have a computer that you'd like to donate, don't hang on to it until May. Take it to one of the Helios drop-off locations. It will make a mighty fine Christmas present for a future geek.