Future of Charity

Hi everyone. My name is Sameh Mina, and I am from Al Menia, Egypt. I have been accepted to Loughborough University to do a one-year master’s degree in Internet Media Clouds with Business and Projects.

It has always been my aspiration to become a successful leader in the field of technology by contributing to the improvement of society with my education and skills. I am passionate about learning and using what I have learnt to help people. I think that studying networking technology with business and projects would help me with my career and future plans.

And I really need your support!

I am currently managing the technical aspects as part of the JSR Network project, which is a platform that provides a way of communication between Arab refugees who have moved to European cities, or are planning to do so, and organisations in their new cities that are willing to help them. I am responsible for building the database by offering the refugees easy access to contact us. Refugees will have different modes of contact to us, either through standard or technological ways, such as registering their details with an organisation or church, short message services, our website or via email. We can then use this huge database between many organisations in different areas by using modern networking technologies to accomplish our goal while maintaining information privacy for people’s safety.

I will have enough technical experience and assistance from work colleagues to use the latest networking technologies for that project. This project will enable me to handle and manage the long-term project I want to start in Egypt “Cloud of Charity”.

Regarding my long-term project, I aim to link charitable and developmental organisations that offer support to the poor in Egypt. We have many organisations in Egypt because it is fertile ground for developmental work, but the problem is that some of these organisations are not very useful for those in genuine need. During the revolution, I was part of a group that aimed to support the injured, and their families and we had a list of cases that needed attention. Although we did our best to help, there was always the problem of not having the means to offer adequate support and I discovered that some charitable organisations were trying to use our list of injured people to further their own agenda without offering real support. I realised afterwards that building a database would have been significant in assisting authorised organisations to administer aid effectively to those poor people.

Therefore, I have the idea to link organisations together through the latest networks and cloud technologies by offering them a secure shared platform. Organisations can then choose the cases that correspond to the type of support they offer. There will also be a website to rate those organisations by obtaining feedback from people who have received help, so that we can differentiate between the reliable organisations and those whose practices are ineffective. Also, I am planning to reach volunteers and give them chances to help people in need regarding different fields like education and health care. There will be a chance for Donors to donate their money through us, while we are going to keep them updated about their money through an app, they can receive receipts and follow up the cases they donor for.

I believe that I have built a network of people who are passionate to offer help, who can be part of my project, in order to maintain a database for people who need financial, medical, legal support and education for kids. I have ideas about securing the project’s database, where only the case description would be available to organisations until they choose the case and start working on it. I need to have enough technical experience with business and projects to handle a project like JSR and this one, and I also need to learn about the latest networks technologies to make this project applicable in the best way. Technical projects like this can be life changing for those people in need, who are tired of hearing promises without seeing any change in reality. It will also create competitiveness amongst organisations and make them eager to provide real services.

This link shows how clouds can be beneficial for charity http://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-networ...

My bachelor in Communications Engineering and Cisco qualifications are the perfect base for the courses I have chosen. However, I still need to acquire more academic knowledge so I can use my experience in the IT field in the most productive way for society. The degree I will be pursuing is interdisciplinary. This is why I’m applying to the “MSc Internet Media Clouds With Business”programme at Loughborough University, as this will provide me with knowledge and expertise in the technical field coupled with the required business knowledge for, not only providing the usual Internet and media cloud services, but also for generating new business and entrepreneurship ideas, plus opportunities within the wider community. Also, I’ll be helping new entrepreneurships migrating their projects to the cloud.

Unfortunately this degree is expensive and I cannot afford it. Before starting a crowdfunding campaign, I want to declare that I exhausted all the available scholarships and funding opportunities apart from Excellence Scholarship that I had from Loughborough University due to my first class degree that I had in my Bachelor’s. I only managed to have 20% off from the total fees. The amount that I ask is the minimal sum of money that I need to cover my tuition.

I will be so thankful for any help (however small) you may be willing to offer either spreading the word or financial help. I don’t mind at all to show proof of my credentials as well as my unconditional offer to Loughborough University. Thank you!