When I first envisioned the Linux Against Poverty event, it was strictly local.

However, as soon as I first advertised the event on GeekAustin and Facebook, I had friends from Seattle, Portland, SF, Dallas, and Houston asking how they could help/participate. I had responses from Japan and Africa as well. Quite of few of the offers came from former GeekAustin event staff now living in other cities. Because these were kind of folks who had the capability to organize events themselves, it seemed a waste of their skills to merely accept their offer to help out with the Austin event. With a little documentation and support, they could host their own Linux Against Poverty. One can find children without computers in every city. So why limit the LAP event to Austin?

My original thoughts were to have simultaneous Linux Against Poverty installfests in cities around the country. However, a large scale install fest which donates the computers to the local underprivileged is a much more complicated process than a hackathon.

As August approached, we were looking at the possibility of having to postpone the event a second time. Consequently, I decided that the initial Linux Against Poverty event will be in Austin only. Although I've been hosting events for almost 20 years, and Ken and the Helios team has been averaging 350 donated computers per year, this is the first time we've attempted a large scale install fest. We will no doubt encounter snags. When problems arise, we'd like to give them our full attention. In addition, we would like be able to share with everyone how we overcome these problems -- so that no one else has to stumble through them.

Once we get through the initial Austin event, we will document it from front to back, and provide our friends around the world -- especially those folks bugging me on the West Coast -- with a blueprint of how to organize their own Linux Against Poverty. Each successive LAP event can benefit from the experience of the previous.

Finally, by not having simultaneous events all the same day, we will be available to provide assistance to our friends in other cities, because we won't be busy hosting our own event at the same time.

We are currently looking for translators to render the LAP documents into Spanish, French, German, and Dutch. If you are a native speaker and would like to help, send me a note at lynnbender@geekaustin.org

-Lynn Bender
http://geekaustin.org