Digging down into the pile on my desk, I ran across a packet from NCIIA the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. http://www.nciia.com/. Among other things, they have grants in the amount of $2000-$50,000 to colleges and universities to help improve existing curricular programs or build new progams in invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Next application deadlines are December 3rd, 2007, and May 9, 2008.

They know what they are about…in the first item of their instructions, they say…”Start Early! We require approval from deans and grants administrators.”

Still, December would probably be doable.

Photo by Al Utzig

Welcome to Tech for Non-Profits, the unplugged version of Microdesign Consulting. Part lab-notebook, part brain-extension, it is a repository for new and half-baked ideas that we run across as we provide software and database development, network support, and R&D for a growing list of clients in education, health care and non-profit organizations.

Postings have been a little thin lately as we have stepped up work with one non-profit client, chaired the board of the outreach committee of another, and moved into a business incubator, (which is also a non-profit). All this while attempting to stay on top of running a for-profit consultancy. (I actually was wondering about re-incorporating as a non-profit myself, mostly to be able to apply directly for grants that are restricted to non-profits…but that discussion is long in the future).

Occasional features here include Tech Friday, which may include code(!), our (mostly) annotated VoIP resource guide, Stuff That Works for hardware and software items that have passed the Five Minute Test, and Chron This Week, which is a synopsis of technology articles of interest in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Topics on grantwriting and fundraising appear as we seem to have one or more grant application in progress most of the time.

Users plead for OneNote for Mac.

Of course, many Mac users say something along the lines of “Except for OneNote, I’d be 100% happy with my Mac, or I’d convert to my Mac and dump those clunky Windows machines.”

So is a port to the Mac likely? I don’t think so, for exactly that reason. OneNote is one of the few “must have” Windows programs that keep people from moving to the Mac (or Linux even). Too bad.

Paul Krugman in the Times nails it.

Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it’s a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we’ve learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work.

Now that Times Select has gone away, everyone can read his Times columns. While I don’t miss Times Select…I had paid the $50.00/year, I’m sure that now we’ll pay for web access to Times columnists by more intrusive animated pop-up ads. This will escalate to the point that the web-based Times will become unreadable in a few months, like so many other news and financial sites.

Another event of interest is the looming presidential veto of the expansion of a health insurance for uninsured U.S. children. Even David Brooks, the Times’ chief apologist for the Republicans, thinks its a good program. So, why, when there are currently three relatively effective US government health plans; Medicare, Medicaid and S-CHIP, are we resisting doing what almost all other western democracies provide as a benefit of citizenship?

In the “Just When You Think It Couldn’t Get Worse” department… I don’t even know how to title this post. I just urge you to read this appalling account of private equity firms buying up nursing homes and then reducing services. At Many Homes More Profit and Less Nursing.

This is part of a series of articles by the Times called “Golden Opportunities” illustrating how older people are getting screwed.

Welcome to Tech for Non-Profits, the unplugged version of Microdesign Consulting. Part lab-notebook, part brain-extension, it is a repository for new and half-baked ideas that we run across as we provide software and database development, network support, and R&D for a growing list of clients in education, health care and non-profit organizations.

Occasional features include Tech Friday, which may include code(!), our (mostly) annotated VoIP resource guide, Stuff That Works for hardware and software items that have passed the Five Minute Test, and Chron This Week, which is a synopsis of technology articles of interest in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Topics on grantwritng and fundraising appear as we seem to have one or more grant application in progress most of the time.