Fighting hunger and poverty

Published: 22 September 1999 y., Wednesday
NetAid is many things to many people: a welcome bit of Web-led charity, another chance for rich people to feel good about themselves, a monster site that had to be built in a hurry. KPMG says the NetAid site it developed in just 90 days is capable of handling the 60 million hits per hour it is expected to receive during three televised concerts on Oct. 9. The concerts will benefit the antipoverty efforts of the United Nations Development Programme. NetAid is sponsored by Cisco, KPMG, Akamai Technologies and the U.N. Development Programme, and has attracted a roster of Internet and high-tech supporters. Listed as "key participants" in the project are luminaries as diverse as U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers and Wyclef Jean, a member of the band The Fugees. The concerts will be held in New Jersey, London and Geneva, with appearances by acts ranging from Busta_ Rhymes to David Bowie. The secret ingredient that_s supposed to set NetAid apart from celebrity antecedents like Live Aid is the Web, which is meant to create an ongoing community dedicated to fighting hunger and poverty. Beyond its eleemosynary mission, NetAid is a formidable piece of site development carried out by a team of 50 KPMG employees. The site, which will remain up after the concerts to support the ongoing antipoverty effort, is meant to be capable of handling 1,000 e-commerce transactions per second. Key content-delivery technology, crucial for the live streaming of concert footage to Web audiences, was provided by Akamai.
Šaltinis: Inter@ctive Week
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.

Facebook Comments

New comment


Captcha

Associated articles

The most popular articles

What's the future for EU's online library Europeana?

You can now access books, journals, films, maps etc from across Europe via the EU's online library, Europeana. more »

Letterman details alleged extortion

Late night chat turned serious when comedian David Letterman admitted he had sex with female employees and was being blackmailed for $2-million (USD) over the affairs. more »

Energy efficient tyres to slash fuel bills, CO2 emissions

Last Thursday (1 October) saw an agreement that will lead to the introduction of more efficient tyres for cars and lorries that will cut fuel bills and CO2 emissions. more »

EU Job Days 2009 – job seekers and employers all over Europe seize the opportunity to meet

The European Job Days are taking place around the EU over the next fortnight, with a centrepiece event in Brussels on 3 October. more »

Financial crisis affects women even more than men

Women, especially migrant and/or poor women, have been harder hit by the financial crisis than men, MEPs heard on Wednesday. more »

Greener, leaner city travelling

New EU plan to make local transport efficient and sustainable. more »

Polanski to fight US extradition

Hollywood heavyweights and European cultural figures are rallying behind jailed film director Roman Polanski. more »

Andrei Sakharov - the man behind the prize

By the time of his death in the Moscow winter 20 years ago, Andrei Sakharov had built an international reputation as a nuclear physicist, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner His fears over the implications of his work led him to call for peaceful coexistence and later for human rights in the USSR. more »

10 nominees for 2009 Sakharov human rights prize

The ten nominations for this year's Sakharov Prize, the EP's prize for defenders of human rights and democracy, have now been put forward and will be officially presented at the end of the month. more »

Lithuania will contribute to promoting women’s leadership in the world

President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė attended a meeting hosted by the President of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and the President of Finland Tarja Halonen on Peace and Security through Women's Leadership. more »