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The project "Hello Buddy/Hola Amigo" is a Sun Microsystems' volunteers' initiative to reduce the digital divide. The digital divide is the gap between people that has resources and knowledge to get access to digital and information technology from people who don't. The source of digital divide came from social, economical, and cultural issues. Some technology (specially if come from the open-source world) can help to overcome the digital divide since open-source software does not have cost for using and also can be distributed freely, countries with with broader digital can use for free.

Digital divide states an important difference between rich and poor countries. Every technology company that claims to be responsible and have social responsibility might do something about digital divide. Volunteers project aims to reduce the digital divide through donation, education or other kinds of help to improve the knowledge and access to information technology.

The project itself is based on Wonderland a Sun's open-source project to create virtual 3D world. Wonderland gives us the platform to build a live virtual and 3D classroom where children of different countries can meet and share in a virtual space for fun...and learn. At the same time we can take advantage of this tool to teach and educate children, if we have technology that provides a broadband connection, audio, and publishing tools, we can develop and attend classes closer to a real world. Finally the project will have a children driven approach, in fact both English and Spanish speakers will teach each other their native language.

The project "Hello Buddy/Hola Amigo" is a good example of how Sun's technology within a open-source initiative can contribute to reduce the digital divide. Of course this project (as many) is powered by Java!

If you want to know more about this project take a look our wiki page and also you can join us at Java.net CommunityCorner JavaOne 2008 we have a mini-talk to share with you our experience.

Finally, our jug (www.jug.cl) decided to change the logo & mascot. We conclude that Duke is most representative of Java Technology and we love it!

With the help of Professional Graphics Designer (Marjorie Valencia) we have a lot of proposals to choice.

Hard Skills is not enough to face an Open Source project, obviously is a cultural aspect the measure of noise in your team communication can vary between countries and cultures.

As a FLOSS Developer I'm facing with a lot of "politician" criticism isn't about technical things is about to deal with "stupid" questions as: why?, what you do you want?, are you crazy?, work for free?, are you rich? and a long etc of a sort of "Poisonous" words.

Today, I can't give you any well documented advice, but take a look this video, from people with more experience than me:

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