charity | Raspberry Pi

Charity auction results

We’d like to say a huge thank you to everybody who participated in our charity auctions over Christmas. Some of you have requested a run-down of the results, so Gert put together this little table (thank you Gert!).

Date	Final ($)	Final (£)	Charity
Jan 08, 2013	829.03	514.13	Samaritans
Jan 07, 2013	395.06	245.00	The Humanitarian Centre
Jan 06, 2013	330.56	205.00	Refuge
Jan 05, 2013	669.19	415.00	Open Rights Group
Jan 04, 2013	451.50	280.00	Claire House Children’s Hospice
Jan 03, 2013	501.52	311.02	Engineers Without Borders USA
Jan 02, 2013	398.29	247.00	Mary’s Meals
Jan 01, 2013	366.04	227.00	The Centre for Computing History
Dec 31, 2012	351.53	218.00	Take Heart
Dec 30, 2012	348.30	216.00	Practical Action
Dec 29, 2012	483.75	300.00	NSPCC Cymru
Dec 29, 2012	694.99	431.00	CLIC Sargent
Total	5819.76	3609.15

Twelve Pis of Christmas: Eben

Today’s the last day we’ll be listing a very limited pre-production Model A bundle for auction. We’re selecting charities to benefit from the money raised; today’s charity was actually both my and Eben’s first choice, but we couldn’t choose the same one for two auctions, so saved today’s for last. Today’s auction proceeds are going to The Samaritans.

In 2007, one of our very dearest friends, Chris Lightfoot (whom we all called Oggie, so he’ll be Oggie for the rest of this post) killed himself. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 35 in the UK, and what happened to Oggie still bewilders us; he had battled depression for all of his life, but we’ll never know why he did it. He and I had been at school, then later at Cambridge together, where we both met Eben around the same time. He was the cleverest of all of us; Oggie wasn’t famous, but he still merited a half-page obituary in the Times for the astonishing work he’d achieved in his 28 years. He was a founder of MySociety, the e-democracy charity, and…well, Oggie’s Wikipedia page can precis what he did there better than I can. His friends also kept his personal website online – it’s worth spending a little while there to get to know him better. Oggie’s worth knowing.

Oggie, punting in Grantchester Meadows. Ironing was not one of his many talents. Click to visit auction.

Oggie was a modern polymath. He had an innate talent as a social statistician; he was adept at politics. He was a superb coder; an exceptional writer; a mathematician and a funny, funny man. I saw him just before he died, and we were falling about laughing over some of the submissions to the new e-Petitions website (that’s the site that the UK government now uses) which he had built and had to moderate; we clinked glasses over someone’s petition to make Tony Blair take a bath in baked beans. And then he was gone.

There isn’t a single day that goes past when Eben and I don’t think and talk about him. Oggie: I use the silly giant pepper grinder you bought us for our wedding daily. I use your tools to check up on what my MP’s up to, to read Hansard and to host this website. I keep the books you left behind when you died in the bedroom. I wish you were here to enjoy Raspberry Pi with us. You’d have loved it. I miss you.

The Samaritans are there to offer emotional support to people who, like Oggie, are in deep distress. Their job is a hard and taxing one, and they rely entirely on volunteers. They save lives; please bid on this auction.

Twelve Pis of Christmas: Jack Lang

We’re auctioning off the very first 12 pre-production Model A Raspberry Pis, with some other goodies like signed books, shirts and an Adafruit Pi Plate, to raise money for charities over the holidays. Only 12 of these pre-production boards will ever be made. The first two boards we’re auctioning end in under 24 hours; go and have a look if you want to own a piece of computing history.

Jack Lang, a Founding Trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the Foundation’s Chair, is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. His career hasn’t just been fascinating; it’s positively surreal. He’s been an award-winning restaurateur, a developer for the BBC Micro in its very early days, and founder of a number of successful tech startups. He’s Entrepreneur in Residence at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, lectures at the Judge Institute at Cambridge, and is a Fellow of Emmanuel College. He smokes his own bacon, has a brick pizza oven in his garden, writes for food journals, and makes Consommé à la Royale so wonderful it’ll bring tears to the eyes. He also has a licence for Class IV fireworks displays, and used to be a roadie for Pink Floyd. Jack is brilliant.

Jack Lang, doing something interesting. As usual. Click to bid on Jack’s Pi.

Jack’s chosen charity is one he has a long association with. The Humanitarian Centre is an international development network that connects people working in academia, industry, government and charities to develop more effective ways of working together to tackle global poverty and inequality. The Humanitarian Centre is based in Cambridge, and is affiliated with the University.

Bid on Jack’s Pi here, or click on the picture.

Twelve Pis of Christmas: Liz

As you’ll be aware, unless you got lost down the back of the sofa in a horrible wrapping paper and sticky tape accident before Christmas, we’re auctioning off a very limited edition of twelve pre-production Model A boards (with accompanying goodies like T-shirts, signed books and an Adafruit Pi Plate) to raise money for twelve charities. Today, it’s my turn, and the charity I’ve selected is Refuge.

Typical pose. (Click to bid on Liz’s Model A.)

Refuge has led the campaign against domestic violence in the UK for the last 40 years, and they have grown to become the country’s largest single provider of specialist domestic violence services. On any given day they support over 2,000 women and children. Refuge also advocate for improvements to domestic violence policy and practice, and the implementation of legislation to meet the needs of abused women and children. Most of the charities I considered to benefit from the money we’re raising had mission statements which made me terribly sad; but the work Refuge has to undertake makes me sad and impotently angry. I have friends who have had to use their services; violence in the home happens to people just like you and me, but we’re skilled at turning a blind eye to something that’s so taboo we find it distasteful even discussing it. Our tendency to ignore domestic violence is tantamount to tolerating it.

I hope you’ll help Refuge keep doing the life-saving work it does by bidding on today’s auction.

Twelve Pis of Christmas: the mods

We’re auctioning off the very first 12 pre-production Model A Raspberry Pis, with some other goodies like books, shirts and an Adafruit Pi Plate, to raise money for charities over Christmas.

Today’s charity was chosen (they held a vote and everything) by the team of mods who work so hard to keep our forums a nice place to be: they make sure this site is innocent of spam and flamewars, and make sure it’s a friendly and informative place for kids and new-to-all-this adults to visit. We think they do an incredible job, and they work extraordinarily hard (I’ve just checked the logs, and in the last hour or so just one member of the team has done 50 separate pieces of work, moderating and OK-ing new posts, squashing spam accounts and doing all the other behind-the-scenes stuff you don’t see).

It doesn’t stop: we get thousands of new posts on the forums every day; every single one of them needs checking to make sure it’s not a sneaky advert for a flimsy plastic kichen (we get a lot of kitchen spam, for some reason), and we couldn’t run this place without the incredibly hard work the mods do. So THANK YOU, Abishur, ukscone, ShiftPlusOne, Jamesh, Gert, Obarthelemy, Jongoleur, Dom, Guru, asb, stevepdp, Jessie, Plugwash, Lynbarn, MPThompson, Scep, Mahjongg, Sparky, rdb and Masafumi_Ohta. We appreciate the work you do to keep our forums a safe, happy and informative place all the time, but we particularly appreciate it at Christmas, when we know you have presents to play with and those big boxes of cheesy nibbles to eat.

Click to bid on the Mods’ Pi (and other affiliated goodies). There will only ever be 12 of these pre-production models made, and this one is currently a total steal.

The mods’ chosen organisation is the Open Rights Group (who are not registered with eBay’s charity arm, so the funds look as if they’re going to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, but we will be paying 100% of the money raised on this auction to the Open Rights Group). The ORG is UK’s leading voice defending freedom of expression, privacy, innovation, creativity and consumer rights on the net. ORG is a member organisation of European Digital Rights (EDRi). They campaign to change public policy whenever digital rights are threatened, by talking to policy-makers, informing the public through the media, and mobilising their supporters.

Click here to bid!

The third Pi of Christmas: Rob Mullins

Today we’re auctioning one of the first Raspberry Pi Model A production samples on behalf of a charity chosen by Dr Rob Mullins. Rob is one of the founding trustees of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and is a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge.

Rob has chosen to donate the money raised from the auction of this Raspberry Pi (which will come bundled with some other goodies – see the listing for more details) to Practical Action, an international charity that uses technology to challenge poverty in developing countries.

Dr Rob Mullins

Rob says: “Practical Action aims to reduce poverty. They work with communities around the world, using simple innovative ideas to help make things better. They aim to make long-term improvements and encourage collaboration within the community and beyond. I’ve always been particularly impressed by their approach”.

As with all the auctions in our Twelve Pis of Christmas listings, 100% of the money raised will go to the chosen charity. Get bidding!

Twelve Pis of Christmas: We’re auctioning off the first model As!

Last year, we auctioned the very first Raspberry Pi Model Bs to come off the line to raise money for the Raspberry Pi Foundation. We’re doing the same this year, but instead of raising money for Raspberry Pi, we have selected (and asked some of our closest partner organisations to select) twelve other charities to benefit from the funds raised. Each of the trustees has also chosen a charity – you’ll get to find out what those were as the auctions progress.

The Pis we are selling on eBay are the first production sample Raspberry Pi Model As to come off the line. They’ll have a tantalisingly low serial number, and you will be one of the first people in the world to own one. We’ll also be bundling some other goodies too, including a Pi Plate from Adafruit, a signed copy of the Raspberry Pi User Guide by Eben Upton and Gareth Halfacree, a lovely Raspberry Pi t-shirt, and a signed certificate from the Foundation stating that you are the owner of one of the very first Model As ever to be made.

The first two auctions went live this morning. RS Components have chosen CLIC Sargent, the children’s cancer charity, to benefit from the funds raised from their Pi, and the manufacturing team at Sony in Pencoed (the people who build your Pis) have chosen NSPCC Cymru, the Welsh arm of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Each auction will start at £20 ($32.49).

We’ll be releasing another Pi every day until all twelve are gone: get bidding!

How did we not spot this earlier?

Hexxeh, an official Friend of Pi and hardcore-Chromium-type has this to say (whole post copied below, ‘cos it’s brilliant):

So a good friend of mine James (@Nxxus) is taking part in Extra Life this year to raise money for charity. More specifically, they’re trying to raise money for Children’s Miracle Hospitals.

On the 20th October, he and two friends will be embarking on an epic 24-hour sponsored gaming marathon, where they’re aiming to complete every Sonic game they can get their hands on (currently at a total of 19!).

Now James has set a few targets for his campaign:

$200: Continuing past the 24 hours until they’ve finished every game on the list (livestreamed), unless there’s a medical reason they must stop

$500: Complete removal of his eyebrows (livestreamed)

$750: Dye his hair white (which he’s been growing for something like 5 years)

Now, because raising money for kids hospitals is awesome and seeing one of my best friends dye his hair white is icing on the cake, I’d like to help James out, by adding a fourth goal:

$1000: If we reach this amount, I’ll release the in-progress Raspberry Pi Chromium OS image. Be aware, it is VERY slow and unusable, but lots of folks have been asking me for it anyway, so here’s your chance to grab it. I’ll also join James live on his livestream on the 20th October for all to watch.

If anyone can suggest extra goals, things I could do to persuade people to donate, then I’m open to suggestions!

So, where do you donate? Click on the following link: http://goo.gl/eY8Ak

Challenge Africa 2012 Raspberry Pi raffle

I’m just heading off to the airport to go to Maker Faire Bay Area in San Mateo, CA – if you’re coming, we’ll be giving talks, doing Q&A sessions and generally making ourselves available to chat to you. Please come and say hello.

I had mail from Matt at Challenge Africa, a UK charity (Reg: 1130522) which is raising money for two schools in Africa, one in Kenya and one in Tanzania. They’re raffling off a Raspberry Pi as part of their fundraising effort, so if you haven’t been lucky enough to get your hands on one yet, it’s worth entering for the chance to win and the opportunity to help a very good cause. Either Eben or I will be drawing the winning ticket (we’re having a bit of a fight about who gets to do it) – I’ll see what I can do about getting the winner’s Raspberry Pi signed, too, and adding some other Raspberry Pi goodies to the winner’s bundle.

The money raised from the raffle will go towards:

PROJECT 1
St Lazarus School, Kibera Slums, Kenya:
This tiny school accepts 130 children who would not be accepted at any other facility due to their families’ inability to fund even the most basic requirements for standard school entry: uniform and text books.

The kids and teachers from St Lazarus with friends from Challenge Africa and a big cheque

Challenge Africa aims to:
1. Fund and refurbish (particularly the roof) of several mud classrooms.

2. Launch another year’s lunch programme for 130 primary school children. Huge leaps have been made in the basic health of the children as a direct result of previous Challenge group funding.

3. Subject to funds: Fund an entire year’s running costs (teacher salaries, maintenance, food programme, books and materials) to give the school time to find additional and more reliable funding partners. The school is in danger of financial and physical collapse in every respect having had all other sources of funding fade away under the current economic climate. Teachers are currently not being paid and food is intermittent. For most of the children, this was their only meal of the day.

PROJECT 2:
Makat Village Community (Maasai), Lake Natron, Longido District, Tanzania
A community surviving in one of the most remote areas of the Great Rift Valley, it is surrounded by water which is unsafe to drink (fluoride levels 14% higher than the maximum levels recommended for safety by the WHO).

Makat is at least a day’s off-road drive from anywhere, the entire community has access to only one dilapidated Land Rover (when it works) which belongs to the Headmaster.
The local population suffer appalling and preventable bone deformities and teeth erosion due to the natural fluoride levels, as well as a range of other preventable diseases and ailments due to malnutrition and the lack of education, medical care and supplies and emergency transportation. The area and community find it almost impossible to retain teachers and medical staff due to the isolation and lack of food and clean water.

Challenge Africa aims to:
1. Assist with immediate basic health and nutritional improvements via:
• The funding and construction of a rainwater conservation system (guttering and 2-4 large cement tanks) attached to the current Makat community school building to provide safe drinking and cooking water for the children and pregnant women of the community.
• The funding and construction of an additional three-room Government Standard classroom building (2 classes + 1 Food Storage Room).

2. The additional classroom structure will also provide more roof surface area for additional guttering and additional water tanks

3. The Food Storage will ensure World Food Programme continues to provide basic maize on a quarterly basis. This is currently irregular and in imminent danger of withdrawal due to lack of appropriate food storage facilities.

4. Fund and take part in Brucellosis testing on the Makat Community’s cattle to provide essential medical data. Brucellosis is often misdiagnosed as malaria.

5. Fund and take part in STD drama workshops with the community under supervision of Dr Penny Aberhardt and the District Medical Officer.

6. Subject to funds: aim to install 1 x solar panel at the Merogoi Outreach Clinic (1 day’s walk) to incentivise Doctors to stay at the Outpost (reducing isolation) so that there is some basic medical facility ‘locally’. For similar reasons, we would like to install one panel at the Teacher’s Accommodation Unit at the Makat School.

Please note that all personal costs of Challenge Africa’s volunteers are paid for by themselves, not from your donations.