One Laptop Per Child Campaign

For those of you who've heard of the OLPC campaign ("one laptop per child"), you might be interested to know that you can purchase/donate one until Dec. 31. For those who aren't familiar with OLPC, MIT developed a purported $100 laptop that is equipped with wireless capabilities and designed for children of developing countries. Though they claimed that these machines would only be available for the global market in regards to this mission, they have recently released them for sale to the general public for $200, with a donation of $200. So, for only $400 you get your hands on one of these nifty machines (the idea here is for teachers and parents to use them with children) plus you donate, ostensibly, one laptop to a child in a developing country. I've posted more information on the OLPC mission on my course blog.

Words & Web Charity: A new slant on the power of the word...

In case you're always looking for the perfect, not-too-consuming online procrastination tool and scrabulous has left you feeling less than fabulous (come on...xi!? a word? even for word junkies like myself it's a bit much at times), check out freerice.com. The makers of this site have designed a word game that tests your vocabulary in which each correct guess adds ten grains of rice to your donation pile. While I'm not entirely convinced as of yet that each grain of my hard-earned rice actually makes it to the mouths of those who need it, and I am slightly unsure of how I feel about the "making a game of charity" thing, I do advocate any opportunity to combine two great things. In a way, it's an example of the best of what web 2.0 has to offer: web-charity-as-business-model or, better yet, business-model-as-web-charity. Or something like that.