Charity -- Engadget Mobile

charity posts

HTC teams with designer to craft wild Touches for charity

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 14th 2008 @ 7:12PM

It seems like having designers gussy up your handsets and selling them to the highest bidder is a fairly successful way to turn a profit for your charity of choice, and HTC's the latest to get in on the action -- in Singapore, anyway. The company has hooked up with fashion guru Nic Wong to design four unique, one-of-a-kind Touches that are being auctioned on eBay's Singapore outpost, and while the spec sheet doesn't get any sort of a boost over the original, you definitely won't be seeing another Touch quite like yours as you travel around town. All proceeds go to the Children's Cancer Foundation -- a worthy cause, if we do say so ourselves -- and bidding ends on the 19th, so have a shot at winning your own piece of mobile art if you happen to be in the area.

[Via Slashphone and Pocket PC Thoughts]

Help Engadget Energize Education in the DonorsChoose blogger challenge

by Evan Blass posted Oct 4th 2007 @ 2:16PM

We like to have a lot of fun around here, but we also know that there are times to get serious and use our semi-prominent position to rally our readers around a good cause. Or in the case of the 2007 DonorsChoose blogger challenge, 25 good causes. Engadget has partnered with numerous different tech-centric programs around the country to help raise funds for the children that they serve, and with your assistance, we're hoping to collect a total of $25,000 to be distributed among these various organizations. The best part? As its name suggests, DonorsChoose allows you to allocate your donation however you please; so instead of contributing to the general "Engadget fund," you're actually giving directly to one or more programs impacting high-need public schools.

You have until October 31st to make a donation -- either by clicking here or on the Read link below -- and we sincerely hope that you'll consider helping out these projects that really do have a chance to give kids a better future. We'll keep you updated with Team Engadget's progress, and while it would be almost criminal to guarantee every reader a new HDTV if we meet our goals, well...

Read - Donate!
Read - Blogger challenge press release
Read - About DonorsChoose.org

T-Mobile rolls deep with designer Sidekicks for charity

by Chris Ziegler posted Sep 25th 2007 @ 3:16PM

T-Mobile teamed up a while back with a bunch of fashionistas to design elaborately redone Sidekick 3s to benefit Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, an organization raising money to benefit breast cancer causes worldwide to the tune of some $40 million since its inception in 1994. The results are in -- and while we can't comment on the usability or aesthetic goodness of what we're seeing, we've got to stay focused on the fact that it's all going to a very worthy group. Some of the names on the list of participating designers are big enough to drive prices way up on the auctions, we'd imagine, which all end today. So go place that massively generous bid of yours, and if anyone can figure out what the heck is going on with the Duckie Brown one, do let us know!

[Thanks, Jade C.]

Charitable iPhone auctioned off for $100000

by Darren Murph posted Jul 9th 2007 @ 11:48AM

And you thought forking out five grand for the very first Nokia E90 Communicator was impressive. In the name of charity, "Keep A Child Alive" to be precise, an anonymous bidder pledged a whopping $100,000 in order to acquire the "first iPhone sold" (at least the first one at Apple's SoHo location), two Jawbone Bluetooth headsets, and a pair of round-trip airplane tickets and VIP passes to the Black Ball in New York City later this year. Reportedly, the pricey handset will be "personalized with a voice mail greeting and presented by Alicia Keys" to the generous winner on October 25th, but we wonder if the bidder would be willing to shell out a few more Benjamins to eliminate the excruciating wait.

Brian Eno hooks up with Nokia for charity Siroccos

by Chris Ziegler posted Dec 27th 2006 @ 10:24AM

We bet you didn't know that this was the punchline to the question, "What's better than a Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition?" Sho' nuff, Roxy Music's own Brian Eno (and creator of the Windows 95 "Start" sound clip -- betcha didn't know that, either) is blessing ten of the high-end Nokia sliders with his engraved signature, which will then be auctioned online with all proceeds going to the Keiskamma Aids Treatment Program and The World Land Trust. Look for the bidding action to kick off January 8 and run until February 12 at nokiacharityauction.com. (And yes, Mr. Eno composed the Sirocco's music, too.)

Got cash in the new phone budget? Do some good

by Chris Ziegler posted Dec 5th 2006 @ 11:50PM

'Tis the season for giving, which leaves the rabid phone fans among us in a tight spot: how do we get in on a little new mobile tech for ourselves and help those less fortunate at the same time? Our friends over at Phone Scoop are hoping to fill the bill by auctioning off a handful of hot, current handsets graciously provided by carriers and manufacturers with all proceeds going to benefit The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria -- the same fund (RED) benefits. Loot includes a T-Mobile Dash, LRG Sidekick 3, Motorola MOTOKRZR K1, unlocked Samsung i320, M500 for Sprint, and BlackJack, and a Helio Drift (see, we told you the goods were hot). Bidding will take place via Phone Scoops' forums, with all auctions ending this Friday. Bid generously, and bid to win!

Sprint to announce red BONORAZR on Friday?

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 9th 2006 @ 1:58PM

It's no secret that Sprint will be going all Moto on us in the next few weeks, but we didn't realize how soon -- or how red -- their initial offering would be. Sources are telling us that Sprint will be announcing a red RAZR (the V3m, we're guessing, like the mockup above) to benefit AIDS charities, presumably in cooperation with Bono's Red organization, much like the red SLVR before it. Normally, we'd lash out at Sprint for being so late to the RAZR game with this one, but since it's for a good cause, we're going to bite our tongues just this once.

Jon Bon Jovi bejewels D807s for a good cause

by Chris Ziegler posted Jun 10th 2006 @ 10:19PM

We're for charity auctions just as much as the next guy, but Jon Bon Jovi and Cingular have made it hard to throw our support behind this one -- the duo are offering a limited run of ten SGH-D807s afflicted with the proverbial double-whammy of unfortunate modifications: jewels and American Idol propaganda. The eBay auction stands to benefit Jon Bon's own 2nd Floor Youth Helpline, a hotline kiddies can call to talk to a "trained listener about day-to-day issues of concern." Besides the defaced D807, a winning bid will net you a "special-edition collectors' box" signed by Ryan Seacrest and Jon himself. Whether Chris Daughtry's departure from the show counts as an "issue of concern" for the hotline, we're not sure.

[Via Slashphone]

911 Cell Phone Bank takes old phones, postage paid

by Chris Ziegler posted May 31st 2006 @ 5:45PM

If you go through cellphones as rapidly as we do, odds are you have a few laying around that are never going to find their way into your pocket again. If you're looking for a way to make those "classics" useful again, we've caught wind of a program called 911 Cell Phone Bank that collects used phones, and either sells them or adds them to a bank of phones available for use in emergencies, depending on their value. Proceeds generated from the sale of phones are forwarded to local law enforcement agencies. The best part is, you can print out a free postage-paid shipping label from the organization's website, so the whole process won't cost you one red cent. Now where did we put that StarTAC?

[Thanks, James]

Motorola's SLVR goes Red for Africa

by Ryan Block posted May 15th 2006 @ 5:55PM

It wasn't too long ago we were hearing rumblings about Bono's humanitarian organization Red getting together with Apple to do an iPod. That obviously didn't (yet) materialize, but you can get another vaguely Apple-co-conspired device through Red if you were thinking of a SLVR. For each phone sold, Red's delivering to The Global Fund for African AIDS programs a £10 ($18 US), then 5% of call charges will also trickle through to the charity. We can only hope that with overhead on retail, Moto, Red, and the charity, a decent amount makes it through to the actual cause, but hey, if you're buying a phone anyway it's better than not buying Red at all, right? Unfortunately it's UK only for the time being (go fig), so if you're really concerned with the health and welfare of the Dark Continent, perhaps you should consider some more direct methods of donation.

[Via textually]