Help promote the TechEd Speaker Auction!

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http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5587400881

TechEd Speakers Charity Auction http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5587400881

There is another auction happening right now to benefit Aceh Aid at IDEP (now renamed to Aceh Recovery at IDEP). Twenty three TechEd speakers have put one hour blocks of their time on the auction block. The auction goes until Thursday, June 16th. We raised over $10,000 for this incredible organization in January and many lucky winning bidders got some great advice from some of the top consultants and brains in the industry. So whether you want to spend an hour asking Juval Lowy some tough architecture questions, learn about the future of communication with Don Box, get some of your tough VSTS questions answered by Richard Hundhausen or Joel Semeniuk, you can do that and lend some aid to help the people of Aceh Province Indonesia who still have a loooong way to recovering from the terrible disastrous Dec 26th tsunami (and consequent earthquakes).

HERE IS THE LINK!!

http://www.AcehAid.org

Aceh Aid is now Aceh Recovery. They are still doing amazing things. Aceh Province is still in a terrible state. It will take a LONG time to recover from the tsunamis and the enormous loss of life, land, infrastructure and sustainability. They have an amazing amount of information on their website now. Please go check it out.

So… I am REALLY excited to report that Microsoft and Stephen Forte have helped gather up 20 of the TechEd speakers for another EBay auction for my friends in Bali who are running Aceh Recovery.

The EBay site will be up soon. Stephen has the list of speakers, but just for google, I will list them here as well, (alphabetically)

Don Box
Andrew Brust
Michele Leroux Bustamante
Richard Campbell
Stephen Forte
Carl Franklin
Jackie Goldstein
John Goodyear
Kate Gregory
Scott Hanselman
Tim Huckaby
Richard Hundhausen
Patrick Hynds
Jesper Johansson
Tim Landgrave
Rockford Lhotka
Juval Lowy
Ingo Rammer
Joel Semeniuk
Kimberly Tripp
Clemens Vasters
Christian Weyer

There is a lot of effort that goes behind pulling this together. Last time Stephen and I spent many hours so I am very grateful for the support from Microsoft this time. And of course to all of the speakers and, in advance, to all of the bidders, whether they win the bids or not.

We will have the EBay site up soon and the rules & regs!

This time it is about 30 miles from Padang. 6.9. Here’s some minimal info.

Padang is in southern Sumatra whereas the earlier disasters were in the northwest, in Aceh Province.

Here is a map on the AcehAid website (IDEP Foundation) so you can see where all of these places are relative to each other. IDEP continues to work night and day in response to the nightmare tsunamis that happened in December and continue to rely on financial support.

http://www.AcehAid.org

IDEP FLASH UPDATE #15 – April 12th, 2005  
From : Yayasan IDEP & Yayasan Andaru Selaras
Re : Tragic sinking of the Endless Sun Vessel

The Cahaya Abadi (Endless Sun), a private relief boat delivering aid to Aceh and Nias has sunk off the coast of Nias on April 11 at 14.00 local time.
 
The 700-ton vessel had just finished offloading a cargo of rice and aid to the village of Afulu on the south coast of Nias, North Sumatra, Indonesia when it struck an uncharted reef in a heavy swell. The boat sunk within twenty minutes. Some of the Indonesian crew of 15 and 5 volunteers swam safely to shore and the others were picked up by fishing boats. All are safe.
  
The Cahaya Abadi had delivered some of the Yayasan IDEP aid and 87 tons of rice donated by the World Food Program to four isolated communities in Nias before the incident occurred.  It had just completed its fourth rice delivery when the accident occurred. The vessel was still fully loaded with food, household and reconstruction aid intended for Aceh when it sank 600 meters offshore.
  
The vessel, leased by Yayasan Andaru Selaras (a Jakarta based NGO) was carrying relief goods from Yayasan IDEP, the World Food Program, Project Concern International and other donors.
  
“We are grateful for the good news that no one on board was seriously injured,” says Petra Schneider, Executive Director of Yayasan IDEP a Bali based NGO.  “We are committed to continue our Aceh aid and recovery projects with the help of our generous donors, volunteers and staff.”
   
The many major earthquakes in the immediate area since December 26 have created an unstable seabed situation with uncharted, difficult to navigate coral reefs.
 
“Crew and volunteers were aware that they were entering a dangerous and volatile situation,” says Chris Gentry, founder of Yayasan Andaru Selaras.  “I want to thank those who have put their lives at risk for the people of Aceh and North Sumatra. Despite the trauma and hardship they have experienced their commitment has not waned. Aid delivery in this difficult time will continue”.
   
 The crew is being evacuated by World Food Program helicopters now. The vessel was a total loss.


  
Among the tons of relief cargo lost undersea were the following items intended for IDEP’s project in Sama Tiga (Aceh) and IDEP is trying very hard to quickly replace these goods as the people there were promised that these items were coming soon aboard The Endless Sun.  Last week, the vessel, en route to Sama Tiga, was re-routed to Nias to deliver rice to isolated coastal communities in need of food, after the March 28 earthquake.

Please help us replace these items for the villagers of Sama Tiga:

• 3,000 Kerosene stoves,$3 each, for a total of $9,000
• 800 “Aid Buckets” total $16,000
• 361 Household kits total $7850
• 340 Food kits total $7540
• 100 Fishing kits total $1224
• 1 trail bike (for delivering goods to villages without roads): $1,500
  

If you can help, please contribute today.

How to help IDEP replace these items…
  
By CREDIT CARD  – Via PayPal, an internet payment system which allows you to make payments from 45 countries  (not including Indonesia – if your credit card billing address is in Indonesia this will not work).  Go to www.idepfoundation.org/aceh_aid.html and follow the instructions there. (Tax deductible for US taxpayers.)
    
By CHECK (in US)  – Via Tides Foundation. Make check payable to “Aceh Aid / Tides Foundation” and mail to Byron Miranda, Accounting, Tides Foundation, P.O. Box 29903, San Francisco, CA 94129, USA. (Tax deductible for US taxpayers.)
       
By WIRE TRANSFER (the quickest way to get funds to IDEP)
Account Name : Yayasan IDEP
Account Number : 034.001229576.003
Bank : BNI (Bank Negara Indonesia), Cabang Ubud, Bali  
Bank Address : Jl. Raya Ubud, Bali – Indonesia  
SWIFT Code : BNINIDJA DPS
    
If you send a wire transfer please send an email to : [email protected] telling us your name, date of transfer, currency and amount, originating bank – as well as how you would like the donation listed if it is not the same as the name on the wire transfer receipt.
     
For additional information about donating to IDEP please contact [email protected]
We will be posting more information on our website soon. www.idepfoundation.org

http://www.AcehAid.org

An aftershock – 3 months after. 8.2 earthquake in the SAME spot as before. Hits at midnight, everyone of course fears another tsunami. Banda Aceh is the target again. Horror. Waiting to hear back from the folks in Bali…will post anything I hear…

It’s been nearly 3 months since the disasterous tsunamis destroyed many countries, killed nearly 200,000 people and displaced millions. In the weeks after this happened I was very involved with an organization in Bali, Indonesia that was doing amazing relief work in Aceh Province. They continue to go strong but have shifted their efforts to Recovery. I was their "website medic" for the first month and was doing what I could in Frontpage to be posted to their Linux server, basically taking little pleas for this getting this and that information quickly onto the site. Now they have a real web designer on board, Sylvia Tu, as well as some breathing room to think the content through rather than just be doing crisis management on the site. The website is looking fantastic and there is all kinds of excellent information and stories about what they are accomplishing. I know most of the world has gone on with their lives and forgotten the millions still in need. Keep track. Pay attention. Maybe they’ll again need something that you can help with.

www.AcehAid.org

http://www.AcehAid.org

yes, we (that’s YOU, the .net community) have raised

$10,138

for Aceh Aid at IDEP to help with their phenomenal relief efforts in Sumatra.

Thanks to everyone who participated, consultants and bidders.

We are not going to list the winners for reasons of privacy.

Stay tuned for more auctions….

http://www.AcehAid.org

Sam Schultz is one of those amazing guys you  think only exist in the movies. BUt he’s real. He is one of the amazing people that is working with IDEP to bring critical support into the horribly devastated areas of Sumatra. A reporter from the Christian Science Monitor traveled with Sam and wrote this story.

One man’s mission to bring relief to cut-off villages

Galvanized by images of the disaster, Sam Schultz bought a plane ticket, hired a boat and crew, and was soon sailing down Indonesia’s Sumatran coast to help survivors…

Here are the pictures that go with it.

http://www.AcehAid.org

The auction has ended. We had a lot of people bidding! The lowest winning bid was $152.50 so even if the winners only pay what eBay requires them to pay ($152.50), we have raised $4575 for Aceh Aid at IDEP. I have heard many people are planning to pay the actual maximum amount that they bid (which we can’t see) so I expect the final tally to be much higher. This was great! Thanks for everyone’s contributions – whether they were a bid, an hour, an offer for a future hour or some p.r. on their blogs.

Here is the final list. Perhaps we will translate it into real names at some point (with everyone’s permission). We will let everyone know what the final true amount is!!

EBay sorts them in the order of the highest bid yet only shows the lowest winning bid. The draft will be based on what people actually pay (per consultant). It will be in one week. Check back for more info!

http://www.AcehAid.org