And the winner is...

We were very excited to join with more than 200 of our nearest and dearest friends to celebrate the fourth annual technology innovation awards on October 17. As usual, the event was lively with opening entertainment by the Afro Blue Jazz Ensemble from Howard University. This event celebrates the power of technology and showcases innovative use of technology by area nonprofits.

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We're delighted to announce the two winners of the 2008 NPower Greater DC Region Technology Innovation Awards (TIA), presented by Accenture.

The winner with a budget in the $500,000 - $2,000,000 range is Peace X Peace for the Peace X Peace Global Network, an online program that uses opensource tools Drupal and CiviCRM to offer a platform for communication, virtual classroom, photo archive, audio interview collection, video clips, and text resources that provide information about best practices for taking action to advance women and peace.

The winner with a budget over $2,000,000 is the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation for GLASER (Global AIDS System for Evaluating and Reporting) a system that combats limited infrastructure and slow internet connections in 18 different countries across the world. GLASER provides a standardized, reliable system with vastly improved data quality, availability, and precision.

Each organization will receive a “full suite” of technology services valued at $35,000 including a strategic technology consulting plan from NPower Greater DC Region (underwritten by Accenture), Microsoft software, and $1,000 in cash.

Check out NPower's new video!

The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation has announced that Julie Chapman, President of NPower Greater DC Region is one of the winners of the 2008 Exponent Award. This award given to the "Best and Brightest," celebrates visionary nonprofit leadership and includes a $100,000 cash award for the recipient's organization.

Julie Chapman is a former technology industry executive and has led NPower to provide over 20,000 hours of technology consulting and support to more than 150 nonprofits.

Click here to learn more about all the nonprofit leaders to receive the 2008 Meyer Foundation Exponent Award.

Dell and Goodwill Industries have just launched Reconnect, a drop-off program to recycle unwanted computers. Reconnect offers free recycling for ANY brand of computer equipment in ANY condition for Virginia and Washington, D.C. metro area residents.

Consumers are responsible for removing data from hard drives and other storage media before donating to Goodwill. Consumers can also request a Goodwill receipt at time of donation.

The program goals are to divert over 2.7 million pounds of used computers and computer equipment from area landfills over the next year; and provide consumer education on the importance of environmentally-responsible computer disposal.

Find drop off locations at www.reconnectpartnership.com

Effective Security Plans

No information system is risk-free, unless it is unplugged and unused. The art of building an effective information security plan is about balancing educated guesses of risk and impact of a loss against the ongoing costs in maintaining the security plan and keeping intended users from working efficiently.

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