Project Phoenix - underway and active

Every so often, Microsoft sends MVPs a set of MSDN subscriptions that we can give to someone that would benefit from them. I have found it to be very interesting in past years and have to say that the most pleased I ever felt giving these away has been to students who are struggling to get into the workforce for some reason (one with a notable disability comes immediately to mind) or to developers that are just down on their luck for some reason.

So I was really excited when I saw that one of our buddies Arnie Rowland had decided to formalize a program that give the subscriptions to people that can really benefit from them. In Arnie’s case he started an effort to give MSDN Subscriptions, training, books, and tools to unemployed developers that would take on a project for a non-profit, school, or church. To date, 27 MVPs have joined the effort and contributed one or more of their MSDN subscription cards. Ten proposals have already been selected to receive awards. And the project continues until the end of the year. Full details here at Arnie’s blog.

The project is not just US-based either. Another MVP buddie Rod Colledge is helping to make this happen in the ANZ region. It’s likely that several MVPs in our region will be involved. Details of the local project are at Rod Colledge’s blog.

Please help to get the publicity happening and to get the word out to more unemployed developers, even invite eligible non-profits, schools, etc. to submit a project that could be matched to an eligible developer.

2010-09-27