Donate Old USB Drives

Antenna Tree This would have been an excellent entry to the 32 MB USB Drive Contest. A company from San Francisco called Inveneo is taking donations of old (or new) USB drives to send to Africa for their projects.

Inveneo wants to provide communication and information technology to developing companies. From their About page:

Inveneo, a non-profit social enterprise, offers a new alternative through its open, non-centralized and sustainable approach for providing ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) systems. Inveneo focuses on designing, integrating and supporting affordable technology systems that match the needs of people and organizations in under-served areas of the world. We provide complete, ready-to-install solutions. We share our designs, both equipment specifications and open source software, so that the systems can be created, adapted and supported locally. Our main goal is to make ICT more available and sustainable so that it can be used to by organizations to build capacity to deliver vital services and for people as tools to improve their lives.

CNN’s Global Challenges features some of the work that Inveneo has been doing in Uganda. Take some time to watch the video:

Inveneo’s Thumb Drive Drive is looking for donations of USB drives so that they can provide the technology to developing countries. They plan to use it for students, aid workers, and entrepreneurs so that they can help others.

If you would like to donate a USB drive to Inveneo, simply ship it to:

Inveneo
760 Market Street
Suite 859
San Francisco, CA 94107

You an also donate a new USB drive to them through Amazon.com:

You can even get a donation receipt!

(Now, on the paranoid side, if you are going to donate a USB drive, make sure that there is no data on the drive. I suggest using a tool like Sure Delete in order to remove all your data.)

I would like to encourage everyone to consider this when the time arrives. It is a great way for us to recycle “disposable” technology.