Mozilla Service Week: Use Your Geek Skills for Good in Your Community

I've been participating in service days where I can share my technology skills with local organization.   My favorite is the annual NTEN Day of Service for the NTC which I've been doing for the past ten years!   

Mozilla Service Week starts on Monday, September 14!  The idea behind service is simple: Everyone should know how to use the Internet, have easy access to it, and have a great experience when they’re online.   Mozilla is reaching out to geeks far and wide to give a helping hand to nonprofit organizations and people all over the world to experience the joy of using the Web!

Here's an update from Mike Everett-Lane on the Social Actions blog about how the nonprofit tech community is supporting the event.

Here's some ways to participate:

1. Choose from a list of service opportunities: Search Mozilla's partner sites (Idealist & betterplace.org) for a volunteer opportunity near you or anywhere around the world! 
2.   Take part in OneWebDay on September 22nd, which aims to celebrate and preserve the Web as an important commons accessible to everyone. This year’s theme is “Digital Inclusion” and there will be local service events that you can join!  More information here.
3.  Create your own opportunity: Reach out to a local school, organization or people near you to find out what sort of technology help they need.
4.  Do a Internet Health Check:  If you need an idea of how to help a local community, the good folks at Mozilla has lots of great ideas that are simple activities that can help make the Web better.  The Internet Health Check offers a couple of easy steps on how to keep people safe on the Web.

Mozilla Service Week has large bandwagon of nonprofit technology and technology companies providing support.  Major names in non-profit technology, service and social entrepreneurship spaces have joined on as as “Friends” of the program to help promote Mozilla Service Week to the various communities that they serve which include schools, NPOs, NGOs and more.  This includes Aspiration, The Extraordinaries,  NTEN, PopTech, and many others.

With President Obama declaring September 11th for the first time as a federally recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance, thousands of organizations around the nation are mobilizing Americans to engage in service and perform good deeds in observance of the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks throughout the fall.    This site, MyGoodDeed is encouraging people to pause and share their plans for a personal good deed.  You can even add a good deed widget for your site.

ServiceNation, a national campaign to increase service opportunities and elevate the importance of service in America, has received a $500,000 grant from Facebook as part of its expanded partnership. Facebook’s grant will encourage users of the social network to learn more about service opportunities through ServiceNation’s Facebook Page and connect with MyNation, a new, online social-networking community on ServiceNation.org being launched in preparation for the first National Day of Service on September 11, 2009.

What are your plans for giving service to your local community this fall? 

Comments

[Jason Inman]

Beth,

I got my free copy of Twitterville today. We have posted thank you's with a photo to you and Shel on our Twitter and Facebook:

www.facebook.com/convoyofhope
www.twitter.com/convoyofhope

Thanks again!

Jason

[scott]

www.twitter.com/adamss