TechSoup - Global Portal

International Partners gather in San Francisco for Partner Summit

Antony Chiang — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:32:49 +0000

Partners and donors from around the world gathered in San Francisco the first week in October to learn and share ideas and best practices for the TechSoup Global program.

Mailshell and Bytes of Learning Join TechSoup’s Global Philanthropy Program

Antony Chiang — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:42:09 +0000

San Francisco, CA – October 4, 2007 – San Francisco-based nonprofit TechSoup (www.techsoup.org) announced today that it will add two new donor partners to its global technology product donation program, which is aimed at building the capacity of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide. The TechSoup Global program is currently active in eight countries: UK, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Poland, South Africa, Australia, and India, and plans to be active in 24 countries by July, 2008.

Long-term North American TechSoup donor partner Mailshell (www.mailshell.com), the world's leading provider of anti-spam, anti-phishing, and email reputation engines, will expand its donation program overseas by donating its desktop anti-spam and anti-phishing software.

Bytes of Learning (www.bytesoflearning.com) develops and publishes multimedia software tools and supporting materials for education. The company, who is one of the latest partners in the North American donation program, will be donating its UltraKey 5.0 typing instruction software.

Both are joining technology heavyweights and existing TechSoup Global partners Microsoft, Cisco, and Symantec, whose product donations generated savings of $18.5 million for recipients in the social benefit sector outside of North America in fiscal year 2007.

“We are delighted to welcome Mailshell and Bytes of Learning to our family of TechSoup Global product donors,” said Rebecca Masisak, co-CEO of TechSoup. “Both companies have made available essential technology products that will be of tremendous value to our international recipient organizations.”

Eytan Urbas, Vice President of Mailshell, commented: “Our relationship with TechSoup has been a driver of our corporation’s donation efforts for several years. With more than half of our revenues now coming from outside the U.S., it makes sense that our donation programs should expand overseas as well. Over the last five years, TechSoup’s enthusiastic team and methodical processes have made it easy for us to fulfill our donation goals.”

The news of the two new international donor partners was announced during the TechSoup Global Summit 2007, which brings together TechSoup partner NGOs of eight countries and four continents who currently manage TechSoup product donation distribution programs in their countries. These NGOs partner with TechSoup to implement the highly effective product donation program, while adapting it to local business practices, laws and cultural imperatives. The country-specific donation programs give qualifying NGOs access to technology product donations and resources they need to best serve their communities.

Art Willer, President of Bytes of Learning, said: “As a producer of computer literacy learning tools, our partnership with TechSoup has been the perfect way to extend our products to deserving NPOs. We have seen so much success with TechSoup in the past year, we expect the international expansion to fly from the get go.”

Rufina Fernandes, CEO of NASSCOM Foundation, TechSoup Global’s partner in India, added: “The TechSoup program is a groundbreaking concept in India. In the past, it was difficult for NGOs to connect with technology donors, but this program removes that barrier. NASSCOM Foundation is proud to be partnering with TechSoup to foster social development by providing NGOs with access to donated products, a wealth of technology content, and connections to communities of support.”

About Mailshell Inc.:

Mailshell is the world's leading anti-spam, anti-phishing and IP reputation engine provider. Via Mailshell's OEM partners, more than 6,000 companies and 15 million consumers worldwide rely on “Powered by Mailshell” filters to block spam and phishing. Mailshell's software helps its OEM partners, including Computer Associates, Secure Computing, Panda Security, Oracle, ZyXEL, and Grisoft, among others, generate new security software revenue, upsell existing products to new customers, and cut anti-spam and anti-phishing engineering and support costs to near zero. Mailshell's headquarters are located in San Francisco. For more information, visit http://www.mailshell.com.

About Bytes of Learning Incorporated

Bytes of Learning researches and develops computer-based learning tools especially suited to group learning organizations such as schools, vocational colleges and rehabilitation centers. Located in Toronto, Canada, the company publishes the leading keyboarding instruction software UltraKey, known for its effectiveness and adaptability to special learning needs. Details about this and other products and services are found at www.bytesoflearning.com.

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About TechSoup

Founded in 1987 as CompuMentor, TechSoup is one of the most comprehensive nonprofit technology assistance providers in the world, employing a staff of 150 and deploying a budget of over $18 million. It conducts a range of major programs on an international, national, and local level. They include the nonprofit technology Web site TechSoup (www.techsoup.org) and its distribution service for technology product donations, TechSoup Stock (www.techsoup.org/stock). The global TechSoup donation program is aimed at building NGO capacity worldwide. It engages a broad network of international partner nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to manage global technology product donation programs for Cisco Systems and Microsoft and currently spans Europe, Africa, Australia and now India. The program is expected to serve about 25 countries in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, and distribute product donations with a fair market value of $55 million in the countries outside the U.S. in fiscal year 2008.

TechSoup’s other programs that empower nonprofits on a global level include the NetSquared (www.netsquared.org) Initiative to help nonprofits worldwide use new Internet-based tools such as blogging, podcasting and social networking to extend their reach and impact. TechSoup also collaborates with Microsoft in the Community Authorized Refurbisher (MAR) Program, through which TechSoup facilitates the distribution of refurbished computers in 44 countries of the Americas.

Press Contact:

Franziska Marks, TechSoup

(415) 633-9336

fmarks@techsoup.org

For Immediate Release

NetSquared Conference 2007

michael.gowan — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:30:45 +0000

In May 2007, over 300 participants gathered to accelerate the 21 Projects that have been selected by the NetSquared community as having the greatest potential to leverage the social web to create social change. Conference participants were asked to vote based on the following criteria:

What projects are the most likely to take off and succeed?
What projects will achieve the greatest impact?
What projects will be best leveraged by the social change community?

So who won?

The real story is that all 21 projects were winners. But you knew that - and you still want to know received the most votes. So without further ado:

	First Prize: MAPLight.org: A Light On Money and Politics Elevator Pitch: "MAPLight.org illuminates the connection between money and politics. We connect campaign contributions and votes for U.S. Congress, providing groundbreaking transparency so that bloggers, journalists, and citizens can hold legislators accountable."
	Second Prize: Miro, Open Source, Open Standards Video Elevator Pitch: "We are to Google, AOL and YouTube what public television is to the big networks. We are a nonprofit, fully open source and open standards, dedicated to creating the next Firefox of web video."
	Third Prize: The Freecycle Network Elevator Pitch: "By empowering globally local social networking, we have created a gift economy/community. The magic: it’s easier to give something away than throw it away & keeps it out of landfills; a cyber-curbside; a digital segue from commodity to community."

You can hear MAPLight.org, Miro and The Freecycle Network's introductory presentations from the Conference, as well as the other Featured Projects' introductory presentations, on the NetSquared Podcast.

Think you can offer something of great value?
PARTNER with NetSquared.

Want to learn more about the 21 Featured Projects?
VISIT the Featured Projects Gallery.

Want to be part of the ongoing community?
SIGN UP for the N2Y2 Newsletter.

NetSquared is an ongoing collaborative project, so whether or not you attended the Conference, we hope you catch up with us on the NetSquared Community Blog and at Net Tuesday Meetups.

TechSoup’s Ben-Horin Included in “Top 50 Power and Influence List”

michael.gowan — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:21:44 +0000

Honor coincides with plans to expand technology product donation program to six continents

San Francisco, CA—September 27, 2006—TechSoup (www.techsoup.org), a project of CompuMentor (www.compumentor.org), announced today that Daniel Ben-Horin, the organization’s President, was once again included in the prestigious NonProfit Times Top 50 Power and Influence List for 2006 (www.nptimes.com). Mr. Ben-Horin has now been named one of the "leaders that are shaping the nonprofit world" for the third consecutive year.

The honor is particularly timely because TechSoup and its parent organization CompuMentor are at an exciting juncture. During the past year, they broke new ground with several programs:

TechSoup launched global technology product donation programs for Cisco Systems and Microsoft by establishing a growing network of international partner nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The programs currently serve selected countries in Europe and Africa. TechSoup will leverage the already developed technology infrastructure to roll out the product donation program to 10 additional countries, spanning 6 continents. It expects to distribute product donations with a retail value of $60 million in the countries outside the U.S. in fiscal year 2007.

In May 2006, TechSoup convened a dynamic mix of 350 international leaders in emerging technology, humanitarian services, advocacy and philanthropy at the first-ever TechSoup NetSquared Conference (www.netsquared.org) to explore the potential of Social Web tools for increasing nonprofit reach and impact. In 2007, TechSoup will continue to advocate the use of innovative technologies in the global nonprofit community through its ongoing NetSquared Web project and by holding two NetSquared conferences, one of them outside the U.S.

TechSoup has also been working on forging new partnerships to serve the nonprofit sector on a deeper level: In March 2006, the organization was awarded a 3-year grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, of $2.4 million, to advance the technology expertise of the public library field utilizing its experience and partnerships in the sector. In September 2006, TechSoup launched the Recycled Computer Initiative (www.techsoup.org/stock/rci) in collaboration with leading U.S. computer refurbisher Redemtech (www.redemtech.com). This first-ever program extends the working lives of surplus corporate computers by providing them to nonprofits in a safe and sustainable manner. TechSoup also implemented "Creative Commons" licensing for its Web site content, which allows nonprofits to share our expertise and content with other nonprofits worldwide, at no cost to them and without having to ask for permission first.

About TechSoup

TechSoup (www.techsoup.org) is the nonprofit technology Web site, created by CompuMentor (www.compumentor.org), a veteran nonprofit technology capacity building organization. Each month, TechSoup receives over 350,000 unique visitors from over 190 countries who are looking for NGO technology know-how, advice and products to achieve their missions. TechSoup features more than 400 how-to articles on 14 technology topics, 17 community discussion forums, a technology news section, and the TechFinder service provider directory.

TechSoup also distributes donated and discounted technology products from over 25 leading providers such as Cisco Systems, Symantec, Adobe, Intuit and Microsoft for a small administrative fee. These products are available to nonprofits in the U.S. and Canada through TechSoup's TechSoup Stock service (www.techsoup.org/stock). In other countries, the program is managed through a growing network of local partnerships with charity technology support organizations.

Since its inception in January 2002, the service has fulfilled over 83,000 requests from nonprofits in North America, Europe and Africa for technology products. More than 2.5 million products have been distributed, freeing up over $600 million for other uses.

TechSoup’s weekly e-newsletter, TechSoup By the Cup (www.techsoup.org/tools/newsletters.cfm), is distributed to more than 56,000 subscribers.

Press Contact:

Franziska Marks, TechSoup

(415) 633-9336

fmarks@techsoup.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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