Case Study 1: Jeff Robinson "Ubuntu on Reused Computers on the Desktop"

At Free Geek our primary focus is to combat two problems facing our society today: growing levels of e-waste and the growing "digital divide." We turn these problems toward each other, taking unwanted computers, installing free software, and giving them to people who otherwise have little or no access to computers. Ubuntu is a very powerful tool in our implementation of this.

Hardware
As we use donated hardware to accomplish our goals, support for a wide variety of older hardware is key. Ubuntu has helped in these areas. Having a free OS that will run on machines such as a PIII 500mhz all the way up to the newest, fastest hardware (with alternatives for slower/older machines) gives us the modularity needed to accommodate all donated machines.

Enduser
Our users are most often people with little or no computer experience, so we needed a distro that could be taught and learned with ease. Ubuntu, over anything we have tried, has met most, if not all, of our needs.

Why Are We Talking to You
This talk will give an overview of what we do and who it affects with a focus on spreading knowledge of Free Geek and its mission, and encouraging others to take up the cause of e-waste reuse while encouraging Ubuntu developers to accommodate lower end systems to enable Ubuntu to be used by all.

Case Study 2: Yolynne Medina "FOSS for Disabled Children and Orphans"

The idea is to create a foundation that will first serve to house/organize the training group of FOSS developers, users, and funders. The target audience is disabled children and orphans. We will try to build a group that can do training for different orphanages and houses for disabled children on FOSS usage with Ubuntu as the OS. This will hopefully lead to the acceptability of FOSS to the less fortunate people and empower them to have the skill to become FOSS programmers or developers later on. Even if these people don't have enough money, we can help them land jobs in big companies like IBM and Google who are getting the services of FOSS developers and advocates. Later we plan to give one or two PCs with Ubuntu to every visited orphanage and do some follow ups on possible trainings and the development of their skills. If there are funders, we can move on and add a service of funding for the children's education making sure that what they learn includes FOSS apps.

Case Study 3: Robert Citek: "ByteWorks Teaches Under-Served Youth" The ByteWorks division of BWorks teaches software applications to under-served youth using open source software. But it has not always been that way. This talk will take you on a tour of how one community-based non-profit has been migrating from proprietary software to open source in its curricula, its operations, and its infrastructure.