Hello from Kabul

My name is Matt.  I work for the International Assistance Mission (www.iam-afghanistan.org).  I'm the IT manager for our biggest project: NOOR (National Organization for Opthalmic Rehabilitation).  Our hospitals and clinics see about 300k patients a year and focus on trainging eye care workers for the more distant parts of this country.

I started work here about 3 weeks ago.  I stumbled across TechSoup while looking through Microsoft's site for information about software donations.  One of the major issues in IT in this country is the availbility of pirated software and difficulty in getting authentic software.  I'm currently looking for options for donated software (Windows, Office and antivirus) but it's difficult as we are only registered in Switzerland and Afghanistan.  If anyone has any creative ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks

Matt

Hi Matt--

Welcome to TechSoup! Thanks for letting us know about your organization--definitely a big project, but what an amazing one that can have tremendous impact.

You may want to check out this TechSoup article on discounted and donated software alternatives as that might give you some ideas or at least point you in the right direction.

Not sure if you've heard about our global efforts, but I encourage you to have a look at our TechSoup Global site that has a list of our global partners.

Let us know how it goes and be sure to post any additional questions that you might have in the forums.

Best,

Megan

One of the major issues in IT in this country is the availbility of pirated software and difficulty in getting authentic software.

I'd be curious to know more on why and how this is a problem.

e.g. Are major companies threatening your organization?  Are the binaries distributed in these pirated copies suspect? Or are there no local distributors?

(In many countries, a few hundred dollars for an OS is ridiculous for the average company or citizen, particularly when that is a huge percentage of the cost of the workstation.)