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As PC enthusiasts, we spend much of our lives, new and exciting opportunities for the technology that we love to work in all facets of our lives. We pay our bills, play games, keep in touch with your loved ones and do business from our computers. They are our hobby, our obsession, our passion.

As a computer enthusiast, we are not strangers to our interest and knowledge about tech for the sake of others. The Internet is full of user-created and supported software, which are filled for all, regardless of financial need or experience level. Some of our education and assistance to others through forums and knowledge base pages. We donate our old or additional hardware to groups or individuals in need. The heroes among us use the mouse and keyboard at work to fill invoices and write programs, then come home to don superhero capes and use the same tools in order for education, inspiration and creative outlets other. Here are just a few of the many who have gone beyond, to use her love of computers and technology in order to improve the lives of others.

The College Difference

Cornell University, Ithaca located, NY is home to a group of students, faculty and community members, the technology to those who aspire to be no access. The Cornell Computer Reuse Association began when Al Heiman, a member of the faculty of the university's IT department, noted that Cornell their computers every three or four years, just updated to get rid of those old computers that were still in good condition.

Heiman decided to gather like-minded people on campus and in 2004 began organizing donations for schools in Ghana and South Africa. In autumn 2006, the CCRA officially a student group at the Cornell campus.

The mission of the group "donate computers and other computer-related technology to humanitarian organizations in developing countries and in the local Ithaca community," it is. In the five years of its existence, the group has donated more than 1,200 computers in the United States and in countries around the world.

The CCRA will ensure that any computer that meets a certain standard will be donated by the organization. The group 's goal is to provide computers for basic tasks like surfing the Internet, and the components of productivity tasks like word processing and spreadsheet can be used.

Have purchased equipment from the Cornell campus, installed its new operating systems, while donating computer erased the hard drive with a freeware program as Darik Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is known.

From left to right: Henry Huan CCRA members of the group, Jason Wang, Denise McEnerney the Hanger Theatre, Amy Allen, and Nathan Baron Schmitt-deliver a donation of computers to the Hanger Theatre, Ithaca, NY.

The desktops and laptops are installed with Windows XP and the appropriate drivers, and are then loaded up with free software such as Oracle's Open Office, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers, Gimp photo editing suite, and antimalware software such as Malwarebytes. All donated computers contain at least a Pentium 4 processor and a decent amount of RAM, usually 512MB or more for desktops and slightly less for laptops.

International organizations are newer models, usually given at age 3-4 years. The CCRA hopes that these machines will take longer and is easier to install it in places that repair is no access to reliable PC services.

The group's current president, Jason Wang recalls, made at a story in an interview on the impact of this organization on individuals and communities around the world. "My personal favorite story is our donation of desktops and laptops at a Nigerian orphanage CORAfrica (Children of Rural Africa) run. From 2007 we started laptops to donate to the orphanage so the children have access to computers for their training (the orphanage would have school for the children doubled). In 2009 when we donated more than 10 laptops, the director asked us for another 30 desktops. We have assumed that the desktop is still for the children in the orphanage, so we donated it him in the fall of 2009. Then we found out that he actually those desktops used to set up a college next to the orphanage (he built literally the college around the computers we donated). then gave it to each other now two schools in close proximity, was the orphanage to convince in a position on the government to drill a well, so you have the kids not to get water back discharged from the river every day. This is the kind of impact we provide you with the computer, we have. The computer will benefit directly the many who use them, and indirectly the whole community "

Students at the elementary school in Nigeria with donated computers from the CCRA.

In the future the organization plans to establish working relationships with other colleges and universities across the United States. The group is also looking  for grants and public support to assist in their shipping operations. "Being a student group, we really only have the money to box up the computers and to buy some of the power supplies for laptops/old monitors. A single international shipment is at least a few thousand dollars and we only fundraise $200-300 a year on campus. So currently, the places we are donating to are paying for the shipping costs since it is far cheaper than buying computers in many countries (especially in Africa). We don't want to not do a shipment because the shipping costs are too expensive, so we are looking at ways to cover the expenses for organizations that can't afford it."

You can donate the organization by visiting their website and on the " Support us "Link.

Changing the World: Beginning at Home

It is no secret that most jobs now require some knowledge of computer skills. Adults who lack access to computers or lack the resources to be able to receive education and training to find themselves at a major disadvantage in today's competitive job market. A group of philanthropists in Northern Virginia decided that an organization would be to change all that to establish.

Computer CORE (Community Outreach & Education) is a coalition of churches and community groups who chose to cooperate, to have computer skills and provide software training for members in their communities.

The organization's mission statement is to "help low-income adults acquire the technological and life skills they need to pursue career aspirations, building careers and community." Their goal is to assist in "helping Northern Virginians find a job, launch a career and become self-sufficient."

Students who are enrolled in the program have a computer at home (to improve the abilities and have access to employment opportunities), and the opportunity to enroll at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) apply for financial aid and college credits for the course work at certain CORE. The average cost for tuition and materials is $ 200.00.

A Core Instructor teaches a computer class, new students on basic Internet skills.

To complete the program, students must complete 114 hours training in Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and e-mail, receive training in keyboarding, and participate in job-readiness training and job placement assistance.

The CORE program has many successes and positive changes in the communities in which they are experienced. Lynn O'Connell lead, director of the organization, took the time to share one of the many success stories of their program. "Sammy came to the U.S. from Ghana in 1994 and was working as a part-time staff pastor in a church, if someone in his community, he suggested at CORE login to expand its capabilities. Although Sammy had a BA in theology from Ghana, made his lack of computer knowledge is difficult to find work. By joining the Spring 2010 class, Sammy dominate soon Word, Excel, PowerPoint and e-mail. Through a combination of a CORE worker got Sammy an interview with State Farm and is now an agent at an office in Vienna, VA. Sammy is hoping that this job is a springboard for a new career and new opportunities to help others. He wants to create one day a church computer lab to underserved children learn basic Computer literacy. "

A look at one of the CORE 's classrooms at their Providence campus.

The organization is currently looking for computer donations, including CPU towers, flat-screen monitors, and computer peripherals, specifically keyboards and mice. Do you have a computer sitting at home that has: 1) a Pentium III or higher 2) minimum 256MB RAM 3) at least a 20GB hard drive 4) A CD drive? If so, visit the CORE website and click on the "Get Involved" and "Donate Computers "Link to lend your support to a good cause.

The Mobile Humanitarians

Over the next three years the number of smartphone users is expected to exceed the one billion mark worldwide. The world has become a mobile environment, and the expectations of what phones can do to people's everyday lives has hardly been realized. A group of young visionaries have decided to tap into the power of mobile technology to create mobile learning games with their company, mind snacks.

The goal of the Mind snacks and its founder, Jesse Pickard is fun and educational games that build the way to change how people learn. "The idea came up when I go to a Spanish teacher in NYC, as I prepared for a trip to South America. Every week I would struggle to find an hour of uninterrupted time for my lesson. One day I looked around on the subway train, and I saw all their phones to play casual games stuck. I knew it was an occasion, casual mobile gaming to mix with language learning. At this time I spoke with some of my future co-founder and she struggled with the traditional methods of language acquisition. snacks mind began soon after. "

The organization currently offers their apps on the iOS platform and are developing their suite for Android as well. Their current  suite of games teach language skills in Spanish, French, and Italian. The apps focus on improving users' vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and conversation skills. The games are colorful and addictive, full of mini games that feature progress tracking, in-game rewards for milestones, even the ever-popular Facebook Login feature!

Snack Mind 's offices in San Francisco, CA.

Most importantly, creates educational games with their mind snacks personalized algorithms to maximize storage and retention, along with audio and visual aids to reach multiple learning styles, whether the user is a beginner or intermediate language learners. All their applications are developed with the help of several Ivy League-language experts. Mind snacks also have a learning content in-house team, which included all content creation and learning design handles.

The hard-working people in mind snacks have to see positive results from their applications in different learning environments. An example is shown in data from an ongoing pilot program at Amity Middle School Orange, Connecticut, which has found that students play Mind Spanish snacks in the class for only 15 minutes a day "mastered" an additional 31.4 Spanish vocabulary per week ! This number doubled to 63 extra Spanish articles per week, when students were allowed to take home the apps.

The Mind team snacks

"This is a very good way to remind vocab and have fun at the same time. We need this game to play more often and take home more" said a boy named Jake, one of the students from the classroom to study.

Mind in the future planning snacks to their suite of mobile learning to expand apps. "We 're going to continue to improve our games and extend beyond the language prep (SAT Vocab, etc) and to test a variety of other subjects. We' re also very excited about the construction of a multi-player aspect to our games "CEO Jesse Pickard said excitedly.

Computers have the power to enrich and expand our lives, providing opportunities that every person, regardless of location or financial standing, should be able to have access to. The individuals who established the groups and organizations in this article began with an idea and took a single step forward to begin their journey to use computers to change their world. Their work is proof positive that computers can provide much more than play games and videos of cats. The next time you flip on your computer, think about what you can do with your passion to make a positive impact.