Geekcorps is a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 that sends people with technical skills to developing countries to assist in computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 infrastructure

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

 development. It is a division of the International Executive Service Corps

International Executive Service Corps

International Executive Service Corps is an American private international economic development not-for-profit organization. Its head office is located in Washington, D.C. Geekcorps is a division of IESC. IESC was founded in 1964 by David Rockefeller, States M. Mead III, and other prominent...

 which "promotes economic growth in the developing world by sending highly skilled technology volunteers to teach communities how to use innovative and affordable information and communication technologies to solve development problems." Co-founded in 2000 by Ethan Zuckerman

Ethan Zuckerman

Ethan Zuckerman is the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, officially starting in September 2011.Zuckerman was one of the first staff members of Tripod.com, one of the first successful "dot com" enterprises, and later founder of Geekcorps and Global Voices Online...

 and Elisa Korentayer in North Adams, Massachusetts

North Adams, Massachusetts

North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 13,708 as of the 2010 census, making it the least populous city in the state...

, its head office is now located in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

Its first program was in Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

.

In 2005, Geekcorps' largest overseas project was based in Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

, with headquarters in Bamako

Bamako

Bamako is the capital of Mali and its largest city with a population of 1.8 million . Currently, it is estimated to be the fastest growing city in Africa and sixth fastest in the world...

. The project is mainly working with radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

s, but is also involved in the development of local language resources, including an edition of Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...

 in Bambara

Bambara language

Bambara, more correctly known as Bamanankan , its designation in the language itself , is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people...

.

External links

• Geekcorps' Website (French version available)
• Geekcorps Mali's website
• Geekcorps Mali's wiki (mainly in French)
• Geekcorps in Mali