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

Swedish poll blow to euro

Opposition to Europe's single currency is on the rise in Sweden, a member of the European Union which is outside the euro zone more »

20,000 people protested in Erevan

About 20,000 people gathered for a meeting of the opposition at the building of the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in the centre of the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Saturday more »

Czechs Elect President

After three rounds of voting, the Czech parliament on Friday elected a new president: former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus more »

Estonians worried about identity in EU - poll

More than 60 per cent of the respondents of the poll carried out by the Estonian European Movement wanted the EU debate to focus on maintaining Estonia's identity more »

High Social Price

In a speech commemorating the 85th anniversary of Estonian independence on 24 February, Arnold Ruutel said the great progress that Estonia has made in recent years has come at a regrettably high social price more »

Jobless rate increases in Poland

Poland's unemployment rate hit a post-communist high in January, rising form 18.1 to 18.7 per cent the previous month, the government said yesterday more »

A high-profile clean-up operation

Finnish and other tourists walking in the area of Vyborg's market square and the covered market need no longer fear being hustled by traders or falling victim to pickpockets more »

A protest picket

Latvian youth organizations organized a picket in front of the U.S. Embassy in Riga more »

Wireless Net access woes at Comdex

Everyone from Microsoft Corp.’s Bill Gates to booth pitchmen are hyping the joys of wireless networking at this week’s Comdex trade show more »

New arrest in N. Ireland spy probe

In a further blow to Northern Ireland's peace process, a civil servant has been arrested as part of an investigation into alleged IRA spying more »