A Holistic Approach to Pro Bono Service Learning

Pro bono Service Learning requires ongoing monitoring and maintenance just like any VMware customer implementation. Through VMware Foundation “Kernel & Cache” pro bono projects, VMware people contribute their professional technical talents to help nonprofits scale and accomplish their missions. These capacity-building projects are not one-offs; they represent long-term commitments to the ongoing success of the nonprofits.

For example, VMware employee Andrew Berenato has continued his service with Surgicorps International since implementing his initial pro bono technical solution in 2015. Each year, Andrew has contributed his 40 hours of Service Learning to ensure that the digitized patient records he and a team of VMware people implemented continue to be useful and relevant to Surgicorps staff, ultimately enabling them to improve and expand their patient care.  

Changing Lives Through Mobility Solutions
The iPads and digital patient form solutions that Andrew and his team initiated powered the record-keeping and screening procedures for the many people whose lives were changed by Surgicorps’ medical procedures, including more than 500 patients in Bhutan who received surgical care, knee injections, and eye care in May 2017, and the 64 patients in its first ever exploratory visit to Kazakhstan in June 2017. The mobility solutions have been iterated and improved upon since the beginning of 2016. With Surgicorps’ mobile solution firmly in place, Surgicorps is setting new goals to expand its scope, growing to six trips by 2019 and twelve by 2024.

VMware Foundation’s inaugural research paper published in conjunction with Taproot Foundation, “Transforming Technology Pro Bono,” provides a practical framework for pro bono Service Learning. Andrew’s project models this holistic approach by incorporating ongoing maintenance to ensure the solution has lasting impact and continues to meet Surgicorps’ needs over time. Pro bono Service Learning can support nonprofits by providing transformational technology, just as VMware enables its customers to accelerate digital business transformation.