Two students at Carnegie Mellon University are putting their technical skills to work by selling online advertising space to aid the victims of hurricane Katrina.
(PRWEB) October 11, 2005 -- In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, agencies such as the Red Cross and FEMA have made it clear that the best way to help the effort is to donate money to the cause. Two students at Carnegie Mellon University have heard the call to action and decided to put their skills to work outside of the classroom.
Steven Kaplan and Keith Torluemke are Junior Information Systems majors at Carnegie Mellon and have created a website where users can buy pixels on their homepage in exchange for $.05 each. In other words, it is like buying visual real estate.
The two roommates have a goal of 1 million pixels at $.05 to raise $50,000 for the effort. They have raised nearly $1000 in their first few days of being online.
The idea for selling pixels came from a similar website, The Million Dollar Homepage, which pulled in over $250,000 in four days. However, The Million Dollar Homepage is not a charitable operation and Nickels for Katrina is the only site on the web to donate 100% of all pixel sales to charity.
"Keith and I felt compelled to help. After seeing the success that milliondollarhomepage.com has had in the last few days, we came up with the idea to raise money in a similar way. As Information Systems majors at Carnegie Mellon University, this was a way that we could use our skills to help others..." said Steven.
Buying pixels from the young men is also a compelling opportunity for advertisers. "There are two main reasons to buy pixels from us. First, and most importantly, the victims of Katrina need financial support to help in the recovery effort. Secondly, by buying pixels on our site, you can increase your organization's exposure on the web!", explained Keith.
All proceeds from nickelsforkatrina.org will be donated to the American Red Cross. If you would like to aid in the mission point your browser to http://www.nickelsforkatrina.org. It takes only minutes for you to donate and submit your graphic. If you do not have a graphic to submit they will even make one for you with a message or your initials.
