Well, after a full year of planning, preparation, and fund-raising; the inaugural trip for Project Macfrica is complete. Thanks to your amazing support, the 39 orphaned children of the Open Arms Village in Eldoret, Kenya have one of the most advanced computer labs in all of Kenya.

While I was away, I made sure to record a daily journal of events to help share the journey with all of you. These will be available in the next few days on our new website or you can also go directly to the pictures taken at the Open Arms Village on Flickr or HD movies on YouTube.

In the coming months, I will be working with Possibilities International to make arrangements for a future trip to establish another computer lab. I believe now, that with the support of Air Canada (they were able to donate a baggage overage that allowed the computers to join me on the trip), Bird’s Moving and Storage (they donated their time and materials to safely package
the 10 iMacs and provided some bubble wrap and art paper for the children without even knowing it!), and the continued support of all of you, that we can continue to make a difference in the lives of children across Africa and around the world.

Thank you SO MUCH for all you’re support. You’ll be hearing from us again soon!

Matt Scobel
Project Macfrica – A project powered by Possibilities International

Stay tuned for lots of updates leading up to, during, and after the trip!

I wanted to write you this quick note to thank you again for helping make Project Macfrica a reality.  Yesterday I was able to confirm all the necessary details with the Open Arms Village in Kenya and book the flight from Toronto to Nairobi for May 28th, 2010! Thanks to your support, in less than 60 days, these children will receive an educational tool that will help them grow and develop and give them even more opportunity to bring change to Kenya and the rest of Africa.

Please keep a close eye on www.projectmacfrica.org as I will be posting picture and video updates leading up to and during the trip to Kenya.

Thanks again for your continued support!

Matthew Scobel
Project Macfrica

For those of you checking out this blog for the first time, I apologize for the lack of updates.  I’m a few days away from finalizing a trip in May 2010 and announcing some amazing new partnerships that will hopefully open up new opportunities to bring more Macs to Africa.  The real action starts in May though when you’ll see plenty of pictures, video, and posts from the trip to Kenya!

Douglas Scott, Nuru’s Chief Marketing Officer, explained to The Loop that they go into a community, sit down with the people and listen. He said Nuru wants to know what the people feel they need to help themselves, instead of making the assessments and moving ahead on their own.

This is the type of approach that I’ve been dreaming of taking with Project Macfrica. On one hand, I wanted to make sure that I had something to bring over to Kenya that I knew would help the organization I was visiting, but I equally was interested in integrating myself into the community and trying to understand exactly how this type of technology can help on a bigger scale. I’m hoping that the learning aspect of this trip will far outweigh the immediate impact of the 10 iMacs, with many adjustments made to the Project once I have a better understanding of the needs.

Non-profit organization Nuru utilizes Macs to end extreme poverty

Just under a week ago on the US “Black Friday” I received a tweet from @meshwerk and @adammcnamara about a deal that Amazon.ca was having on Mac Mini computers. The deal was for the 2006 model Mac Mini (still new) for $69. I initially purchased 12, thinking they would make a great gift for family and friends, but then quickly considered the different alternatives that could lead to some more computers headed to Africa and ended up buying a total of 44.

There was certainly a general feeling that Amazon could have had an incorrect price, but considering it was Black Friday and the machines were 3 years old, it seems pretty legitimate.  Well yesterday I received the email from Amazon cancelling the order.

Hello,

Our records indicate you recently tried to purchase a Mac Mini computer from Amazon.ca. However, due to a catalog error, the computers appeared on our website by mistake.

Since we don’t have access to the items and won’t in the future, we have removed them from your order. You won’t be charged for them. Any other items in your order won’t be affected by this cancellation. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and hope you’ll visit us again soon.

You can view the status of your order via the Your Account page:

http://www.amazon.ca/your-account

Sincerely,
Amazon.ca Customer Service

Disappointing to say the least.  I can’t blame Amazon if they made a mistake, but it’s really unfortunate that this deal couldn’t go through.  I’m still wondering if it was an Amazon.com deal that was put up on the Canadian site by mistake?  The actual models that were ordered were showing up as “French” so I doubt that was the case.  Either way, an opportunity lost that would have been a nice boost to the project going forward.  I’m still not sure if I should bother to take up the issue with Amazon Customer Service or just let it drop and move on to the next idea.

Thoughts?

Great job on the video Erin, you can check out the video here!

While preparing for this announcement I came across the original email I sent to my sister (who is currently in Kenya, and my inspiration for this entire project). It read…

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 6:48 PM, Matt Scobel <scobel@mac.com> wrote:
I had a moment yesterday…I don’t know how or when, but I’ll see you in Kenya before the end of the summer with alot of iMacs

Ok, so I might have been a tad bit ambitious about the date, but here we are 5 months later, and myself along with Possibilities International are proud to announce that the first goal of Project Macfrica has been reached, and we are headed to Kenya! Through the help of the amazing people that are listed at the end of this email, we’ve been able to raise a grand total of $5,581 plus a flight from Ottawa to Nairobi in early 2010 to deliver and setup the iMacs in the Open Arms Village.

To say that this has been an amazing experience for me would be a huge understatement.  I went into this project with absolutely nothing except an amazing network of friends, family, and colleagues who were ready to make sure this didn’t die as an idea. I can’t even begin to explain how supportive everyone has been.  Thank you all!!

There are plenty of amazing things coming up for this project.  In the short-term, I’ll be using my ninja Mac technical skills to set these machines up with a ton of great software and resources including  off-line versions of Wikipedia and Google Earth (more on this coming soon!) and finalize for the first trip in early 2010.  In the long term, my vision is to provide a sustainable opportunity for individuals and businesses in North America (for now) to give a second life to their used Macs and for children and students in Africa (for now) to reap the reward.  There’s a ton of work to do, and if you are able to help in any way please make a donation through CanadaHelps.org (Select Donate Now and choose Project Macfrica from the drop-down), or contact me at macfrica@gmail.com

I would like to thank the following doners for their generosity as well as the amazing people over at Possibilities International (check out the new site www.iam1ru.com) for facilitating this entire project. I also want to acknowledge Chris Lafleur-Bell and Treacy Sorel for making the transaction possible!

Sean Costello (IronGate Server Management Consulting) – Williams McEnery Law Firm – John Dawson – Harold Bergeron – Hank, Gina, and Jeffrey Andrulis – Brian and Kay Dawson – Sybren and Sherri Heeg – Bob Coady and Kira Schoch – Sarah Regnier – Dianne Scobel – Bob and Gwen Dysart – Joe and Cindy Pestrak – April Scobel – Laura Regnier – Adam Sneath – Chesey Kovacs – Katrina Deforno – Treacy Sorel – Beverly Jones – Kay Pritchett

The 13POB13 Wave Continues

What type of programs/software should we be trying to include on these iMacs for the children?  They will not have internet access on these machines initially.

William Kamkwaba’s Website: Here

William Kamkwamba’s Book “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”: Here