The current economic condition is hitting everyone pretty hard, even developers. For developers, part of the challenge in finding that next job is having the right, up to date skills. To help folks get those skills, Arnie Rowland and a number of other MVPs got together to pool MSDN subscriptions. This year, every MVP gets 3 MSDN Universal Subscriptions- 1 to use and 2 to give to worthy recipients. To pick a worthy recipient, an unemployed or underemployed developer needs to propose a software project for a non-profit agency, school, or church to be assisted by Project Phoenix. Arnie and his associates will then pick at least one project week to ‘fund’ with the MSDN Universal Subscription. A number of other companies joined in to offer more resources to help the selected developers make the most of this opportunity. Publishers have donated books and software companies have donated tools. I’m very proud that Pluralsight has donated a subscription to their .NET Training Library. I have created content for that library and am thrilled that an organization I am involved with is helping developers get back up to speed with current technology.
Project Phoenix is not a ‘free lunch.’ It supports the developers’ efforts so that they can gain from the work they do. I do recommend that you visit Arnie’s site to read all the details!
Here is the an example of one project that was funded:
Feed My Sheep: We are a community feeding program, that originally started as a 3 month summer project, one night a week we would provide a free meal for anyone who wanted to attend. We are in desperate need of a website in which we could post updates, have a calendar of volunteers and groups that will be serving each month and list special events.
Karmic Code Monkey 