CIDA ICT Academy:

Sun is part of a consortium that has established an ICT Academy at CIDA City Campus. The consortium, which is made up of some of South Africa's most notable ICT organisations, will see benefits from this academy as it will develop and nurture individuals into marketable employees for the South African ICT sector. A 3 year curriculum is offered, with the first year consisting of a foundation in information technology, where the students will write A+, Network+ and ICDL exams. Thereafter the students will have the option to choose from three streams of specialisation, such as Java programming and Solaris, Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP) and Networking (Cisco). Sun SA has a 2 year agreement with the CIDA ICT Academy to provide Java Programming and Unix training. CS Holdings Education Solutions are currently delivering the training on behalf of Sun SA. In addition, these students are currently doing their Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree. Once accepted as a student of the ICT Academy, the attendance is free of charge.

Sun has provided 28 Unix workstations (Sun Blades), 1 server, Instructor (through our Education Provider, CS Holdings Education Solutions) and all courseware material as well as certification vouchers to the CIDA ICT Academy.

On the 24th of November 2004, Sun Microsystems SA won the American Chamber of Commerce Silver 'Stars of Africa' Award for the CIDA ICT Academy. The 'Stars of Africa' Awards recognise programmes and projects that make a genuine difference. These awards are given to US companies that are making a real difference now, and for the future. The judges reviewed each project independently, with their evaluation based on a strict set of guidelines. These criteria revolve around how innovative each project is; the impact it has had; how sustainable it is; and whether it can be replicated to benefit other communities or environments.

South African Abused Childrens Fund (SAACF):

SAACF is a non-profit organisation that is registered with the Department of Welfare. Our contribution goes towards helping children with AIDS which covers nappies, creams, medication, anything that is required for these children. In addition, we contribute to a fun day budget which allows the SAACF to take the children out to the zoo, Gold Reef City, Sun City, movies or lunch. Whilst it might seem frivolous to take a child out for lunch, it is a meal that some of the children have never had before.

Diepsloot Charity Drive:

Diepsloot is an informal settlement where a significant percentage of disadvantaged persons reside. A group of volunteers at Sun SA have taken the initiative to get involved in charity work. They have appealed to all in the Sun SA office to donate items of clothing (especially for children). The clothes, food, blankets, etc were collected and distributed to a number of nursery schools in Diepsloot. The nursery schools support very poor families and the need for such items are great.

Support is ongoing.

The Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU):

The PHRU is a research unit of the University of the Witwatersrand and a division of the Wits Health Consortium. Established in 1996, the PHRU is recognised nationally and internationally in the field of research and policy in mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Its focus has expanded to include treatment trials in adults and children, TB and HIV, prevention research, psycho-social research, training, advocacy and policy development. Recently, we initiated South Africa's first HIV Vaccine trials, and our co-directors, Dr Glenda Grey and Prof James McIntyre, received recognition when they were awarded the 2002 Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.

The PHRU is a non-profit, non-government funded organisation. Our money comes in the form of research grants, but the grants do not cover matters of Infrastructure Development like training. They use a SunFire 280R Server running Solaris 8 to run Clinical Research Data Management Software called DataFax. However, they have limited UNIX administration skills. Sun SA sponsored three of the PHRU staff to attend UNIX Administration training courses through our Education Provider, CS Holdings Education Solution.

Standard Bank Cycle for Kids:

Standard Bank have challenged their main vendors (one of whom is Sun Microsystems, SA) to participate in raising funds for needy children. A member of their staff, and a supporter of Sun will be cycling to Durban from Johannesburg to raise funds for Cycle for Kids. Sun Microsystems employees have raised money which will go a long way to improving the life of someone who is less fortunate, giving them hope for their future.

South African Developers' Community:

Sun Microsystems SSA has embarked on a SSA initiative to make the latest Java technology available to the local developer community, by investing up to R15m in a programme which aims to provide professional software and hardware to developers at reduced prices. The product is strictly targeted at individual existing or aspiring developers, or SMMEs with less than 5 employees.

University of Port Elizabeth: Centre of Excellence:

Sun Microsystems has partnered with Telkom in a quest to develop new solutions in the fast-evolving telecommunications sector. This initiative has assisted Telkom in solving technical problems and enhancing operational efficiencies. The aim is to promote information and communication skills development in South Africa as well as to create a partnership between the historically disadvantaged and advantaged tertiary education institutions. Sun's financial commitment for 2005 is R200,000.

"The UPE CoE project that Sun is helping to fund focuses on the development of several data visualisation software tools that can be used to help manage large networks (particularly enterprise networks) more effectively and efficiently. The tools will provide a number of innovative ways of viewing network performance by processing very large amounts of network data, making it possible to move easily between "big picture" views of network performance and increasingly detailed views.

The project's focus on storing, processing and visualising network data has resulted in additional sub-projects. Research is being done on application performance modelling for enterprise networks, to help technical managers plan network changes and measure the effects of such changes. Techniques and algorithms for data warehousing and data mining of network data are being investigated, using a Sun N1 Grid data centre, Java software and storing large amounts of data in Oracle databases. The data centre is being used as a test-bed for evaluating the performance of Sun N1 Grid hardware and software. Information visualisation techniques for mobile devices (PDAs and cellphones) are also being studied.