NetDay96 (fwd)

[Emanuel Barros <eman@netcom.com>]

I apologize for those that are out of California, but other wise
please consider helping.  This is a very worth while cause.
This will bring us much closer to educating all the children in 
our schools about what's going on on the internet.  TIA

                                             eman@netcom.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------

>On NetDay96,  March 9, 1996, a hundred thousand volunteers in 
>California
>will go to twelve thousand schools in California, and install the same
>Category 5 wire we use in all California business local area networks.
>We will connect five classrooms and the library to a central closet, 
>in
>preparation for connection to the Internet.  This is a barnraising, a
>kickstart for networking in the schools.
>
>Every high tech employee in California should be involved. Every
>contractor for a high tech company should be involved. Anyone --
>employee, customer, or supplier -- that you can think of who believes
>linking our children to the Internet is a good idea should be 
>involved.
>
>What do you do?  Go to www.netday96.com, find a school, and volunteer 
>to
>help put that school on the Internet on March 9.  Go to that school on
>Saturday, March 9, and help ten other people pull wire from five
>classrooms and a library or computer lab to a central closet -- you 
>don't
>need any particular expertise.  That's it. You can choose a school 
>from
>the twelve thousand home pages created on a server at the Well:
>www.netday96.com.  All schools, private or public, are there; if it 
>has
>more than ten children in a classroom, it's a school -- if you don't 
>see
>your school, mail netday@kqed.org  and NetDay will put up a home page 
>for
>you.
>
>As NetDay approaches, you will see pages go up for every company in
>California supporting NetDay, together with the count of participants 
>from
>each company.
>
>We're jumpstarting the schools.  Our goal is to bring every school in
>California past the first barrier to access: interior wiring.  We then
>use the new capability in the schools to persuade the carriers to 
>provide
>Internet access.  And it's working.
>
>We now have commitments from MCI, Netcom, and ATT to provide free 
>dialup
>a ccess to the Internet for every school in California. Higher 
>bandwidth
>will come next.
>
>We've talked the vendors into creating NetDay Kits that they will ship
>directly to the schools. A standard kit, with two to three thousand 
>feet
>of Cat 5 wire, jacks, a 24-way patch panel, connectors, and cable ties
>will cost between $350 and $500.  Pacific Bell is sponsoring 1,000 
>kits.
>Small electrical contractors are sponsoring two or three schools.
>Individual parents are sponsoring schools.  You can. Your district 
>office
>can.  All details are at the NetDay web site: www.netday96.com.
>
>Please sign up now.
>
>Our first need is to show a groundswell of volunteers.  We announced
>NetDay in San Francisco on January 19, at a school wired by Sun and 
>3Com
>employees on Volunteer Day in November. Vice President Gore arrived to
>praise the volunteers, and thank all California high-technology 
>companies
>participating in NetDay.  Volunteering has taken off, but we need to 
>reach
>ten thousand in the next week or two.
>
>Please volunteer today.
>
>This Web site is the first use of the World Wide Web to organize a 
>mass
>volunteer event.  Please help make it a success.
>
>Please mail this request to anyone on your mailing lists. Please ask 
>all
>webmasters to put a pointer to www.netday96.com on their home page.  
>We
>are organizing this in a totally decentralized way, using the Web.  
>This
>is the first time this has been tried, and I believe the Net can do 
>it.
>
>We can do it.