With an auction starting on Monday, 22 of the top Tech*Ed speakers, including Microsoft employees (don’t worry we cleared it with Legal <g>), will together to help raise money for an organization that is doing amazing and heroic disaster relief and recovery in Aceh Province, Sumatra, the hardest hit area of the Dec 26th Tsunamis. Just like last time we will auction the time off on eBay, the link will be here in about 24 hours.

Although news of the tsunami has largely disappeared from the international press, five months later, the situation on the ground in Aceh remains acute. Many isolated communities have not yet been helped. Aceh Recovery at IDEP (www.acehaid.org) is continuing their efforts to get assistance to the people that are most in need through a dynamic network of local NGOs and partners on the ground in Aceh.

Here is the current list of speakers donating their time:

Don Box

Jesper Johansson

Richard Campbell

Scott Hanselman

Kimberly Tripp

Michele Leroux Bustamante

Kate Gregory

Juval Lowy

Stephen Forte

Clemens Vasters

Andrew Brust

Carl Franklin

Ingo Rammer

Christian Weyer

Joel Semeniuk

Rockford Lhotka

Patrick Hynds

Tim Landgrave

Tim Huckaby

Jackie Goldstein

John Goodyear

Richard Hundhausen

WHAT IS IDEP?
IDEP is a small, Indonesian NGO, based in Ubud, Bali. Completed projects over the years have included community based development, sustainable living initiatives, permaculture training, waste management, organic gardens, recycling, etc. The focus is on helping people to help themselves. IDEP's founding director, Petra Schneider is a US-born, Indonesian citizen. The demonstrated and reproducible success of IDEP's small projects in local communities has earned the team an excellent reputation.

IDEP AND DISASTER RESPONSE/RELIEF/RECOVERY
At the time of the Bali bomb, about two years ago, IDEP was an important element of the network of local NGOs and other supporters that quickly responded to the tragedy, in various ways, not only immediately after the bomb, but during the recovery process for the various communities involved. Following shortly thereafter, IDEP received funding from USAid to create a comprehensive set of disaster management materials for Indonesian communities, aimed at children, families, and local leaders (official and unofficial). The materials are in the Indonesian language and suitable for use in rural and urban settings. These materials, including a booklet for children about Tsunami preparedness, were finished just weeks ago, but had not yet been disseminated to communities. Then the tsunami struck.

WHAT IS ACEH RECOVERY AT IDEP
Only hours after the news of the tsunami reached Bali, the same network of NGOs and individuals in Bali who had been involved in the relief efforts for the Bali bomb, reanimated and went into action. We started something called the "Aceh Aid Bucket Brigade" (see website), creating and deploying one-family-one-bucket multi-material aid packages from the hands of donors in Bali to the field in Sumatra. We began sending highly skilled volunteers, well-matched to the task within two days of the tsunami (Sam Schultz, Lee Downey, Oded Carmi and others). Our relief, and later, recovery programs in response to the Tsunami are now focused on two fronts. One is direct aid from Medan by road to areas around Banda Aceh. The other is this remarkable joint effort (nothing short of heroic), to the islands off the west coast of Sumatra, which as of yet, have not been receiving aid from any other channels that we know of. Read more at www.acehaid.org.