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Salesforce.com/foundation announces the launch of Just Think's First mobile Computer Center on the Big Island of Hawaii

August 2001

Remember the book mobile when you were a kid? Salesforce.com/foundation is helping to make possible this century's version of such a vehicle through a roving multi-media technology center that will be launched in Hawaii today. This renovated school bus will travel through remote areas of the Big Island of Hawaii to reach underserved students and teach them technology and media literacy skills. This project is being done with Friends of the Future, a youth development organization in Waimea, and the Just Think Foundation, who is dedicated to teaching young people literacy for the 21st century by providing them with the skills to be critical thinkers and creative producers and who has developed and deployed two other buses around the country. Salesforce.com/foundation is forwarding it's mission to unleash the potential of youth through technology by launching this bus at Waimea Elementary and Middle Schools in Waimea.

The bus cost approximately $50,000 to build and is equipped with several multi-media computers for digital imaging, editing movies, and enhancing technical skills. This mobile multi-media technology center will bring programs to the youth that are relevant to their area and lives. Students are already ramping up to use the bus to work on projects such as:

- Capturing oral histories and creating their own music to accompany their video works by students in Kohala
- Doing oceanographic research who want to better document and share their work
- Working on original plays in Honokaa
- Creating web sites and information related to safe teen activities in the community of Laupahoehoe

Salesforce.com/foundation's mission is to unleash the potential of use through technology by building community technology centers (CTC) in partnership with PowerUP. These CTCs provide open and relevant access to technology for youth in underserved communities. The foundation was launched a year ago by Secretary of State Colin Powell and an initial start-up fund of approximately $2.5 million. To date, we have successfully helped to build 14 centers in California, 8 technology labs in schools in Tibetan refugee camps in India and Nepal, and built 10 Cisco academies to help foster the peace process in Israel. This project is the Foundation's first partnership with Just Think's mobile computer center and first time working in Hawaii. The Foundation reaches thousands of youth and salesforce.com employees have given hundreds of volunteer hours to these programs since the inception of the company.

For more information about this event or salesforce.com/foundation in general please contact:
Suzanne DiBianca, Executive Director - sdibianca@salesforce.com (415) 901-7095 or
Julie Trell, Curriculum Imagineer and Technology Inspirer - jtrell@salesforce.com
(415) 901-5082

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