[Linux-aus] Follow up: Vic bushfire relief - interest for offers of IT assistance?

[Kylie Willison]

On Wed, 2009-02-25 at 20:36 +1100, Hamish Taylor wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Hamish Taylor
> <hamish at devworldit.com.au> wrote:
> > Secondly, for those who don't know, I am currently heavily involved in
> > the Victorian bushfire relief effort
> *snip*
> 
> Thanks to all those who replied with offers of assistance, services
> and gear. I do not know what is going to happen from here. I am not
> able to verify if DHS or any other agency is able to use our offers of
> assistance. Due to the situation that I was in at the time (I am no
> longer at DHS, and am now at DSE in another role), I was not able to
> get the contact details for the coordinator person, who I was speaking
> to about the offers of assistance and ask for a status update. He has
> my contact details but I have not received a call or email as yet.
> 
> Mitch has suggested, that for those who are interested, we might form
> an "Emergency Response IT Group" of some sort. l welcome suggestions
> from you all about how this might be established and function, but I
> suggest that we might be able to provide, at short-notice certain gear
> and services to establish connection to the Internet and basic web
> browsing functionality. If there's interest in this, we might form a
> Google Group and begin to explore this concept. Does anything like
> this exist in Australia at moment? I know of "Telecoms Sans
> Frontieres" and all the other "...Sans Frontieres", however is there
> any kind "Computers Sans Frontieres"?

Hi Hamish
In Victoria there's Computerbank www.computerbank.org.au and Kylie
Davies is the person to speak to.  She may or may not be on this list.
Computerbank refurbish donated computers and give them out (with Linux
on) to individuals and groups at very low cost.  Kylie may also have
contacts already for providing computers to community groups and fire
victims.

As for forming an Emergency Response group perhaps it could be a sub
group of Linux Australia and then the group infrastructure is already in
place and doesn't have to be hastily put together.  Everything for email
groups and stuff is already done then too.  Public liability insurance
is always a pain in the neck when groups of people are getting together
so being a sub group of Linux Aus would help here too.

Kind regards, Kylie Willison