Innovative Web Technology Fights AIDS and Poverty

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Friday, June 16, 2006; 07:56 AM

Yahoo! and ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History, announced an alliance in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty with the launch of the revamped Ajax-powered ONE.ORG web site. The site features new resources to help Americans raise their voices as "ONE" to save and change lives in Africa and the world's poorest countries. Yahoo! provided tools and creativity to rebuild the site as part of its Yahoo! for Good community relations initiative and will spotlight the new ONE.ORGon its homepage, www.yahoo.com, one of the most trafficked destination on the Internet.

"Yahoo!'s gift of their time and tools has the power to save and change lives in Africa and the world's poorest countries," said Paul Dioguardi, ONE's chief executive officer. "Together, we're connecting people across America and exponentially widening our reach, engaging millions in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty. Putting the fight to help the over ONE billion people who live on less than a dollar a day on a site with millions of hits a day is nothing short of incredible."

Yahoo!'s support of ONE.ORG is the latest focus of the "Yahoo! for Good Scrum," a program that allows Yahoo! employees to take up to three months from their typical day jobs to apply technological talents to projects that deliver a positive impact in the world. A "scrum" is a development process carried out by a highly-collaborative, self-organizing team. The program was conceived by Yahoo! co-founder David Filo as a unique benefit for employee recruitment and retention.

In just a few months, the Yahoo! for Good Scrum team has rebuilt the ONE.ORG website into a full-service station supplying everything needed to join ONE, connect with other concerned Americans and take part in asking America to do more to save lives and fight global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE sought out Yahoo!'s  community-building tools, including Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers and Flickr, as well as (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) AJAX technology and infrastructure improvements to help ONE.ORG handle high-volume traffic. The result is an easy-to-use resource that quickly connects volunteers and activists with ONE's efforts. ONE will also launch a new letter campaign on the site to ask America to keep the 2005 Gleneagles G8's promises to Africa and the world's poorest countries.

The new ONE.org website.