[Pdx-pm] MMT grant

[david pool]

My fellow perlmongers,

Recently Meyer Memorial Trust funded a local nonprofit mental health
center out in Hillsboro for a grant that would convert them over to open
source software.

The grant is being run through Collaborative Technologies, a recent 
addition to Free Geek. The central component of the project
is replacing the center's patient tracking system, which had been 
developed in Access.

We found an existing open source project that's mature, reasonably full 
featured and written in Perl. The project just wrapped up version 2.3, 
and we're begining to work with Tom Good, the project leader, on what 
will be SQL Clinic 3.0 (codename Portland) when we finish. Tom is 
delightful.

This is an important first experiment with open source software for 
Meyer Memorial Trust. Although this grant is a small one, MMT hands out 
about $15 million a year in Oregon and SW Washington each year.

If all goes well, it's a good bet they'll be funding more projects. I'm 
hoping that some of the perlmongers would consider pitching in some 
volunteer time to help make this first one a big success.

I don't usually present things at the Perlmongers meetings, but if 
people were interested I'd be happy to talk about the project a little. 
In fact if people are interested I could see if Ron Braithewaite, the 
Collaborative Technologies Coordinator, could come give a general overview.

Is anyone interested?

david pool