[calabin]

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately as well. I run a software consulting firm (business automation, process improvement, etc.) and have been looking for ways for our company to utilize our skills for good. We could contribute in the ways that many companies already do (I put my employees on a bus to go paint a school or clean up a park and hire a photographer to make sure that it's of some PR value), but I think that we could do much more by aiding charitable organizations with certain high-impact software projects.

For example, This American Life did an episode about refugees in Greece and discussed how they need to continually dial a single phone number to register for an entrance interview (if I remember correctly) (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/592/are-we-there-yet). This was all done via Skype, so everyone had the ability to access web apps, and a single all-encompassing web application could have significantly reduced the time that these people spent in refugee camps (so long as other political forces didn't get in the way, etc.).

If you're interested in working together on something like this, I encourage you to email me at cj ^at^ oscillas.com.