Earlier this month, celebrities, professional athletes and hundreds of riders with and without disabilities joined forces for the fifth annual Audi Best Buddies Challenge: Hearst Castle. Team CSC-Saxo Bank’s Bobby Julich led a CSC team of 35 employees, partners and clients, who together raised more than $47,000 for Best Buddies.

CSC team captain Joe Amato, managing director of CSC’s Global Business Services office in San Francisco, says, “It’s a really unique and rewarding event. Due to our very positive experience last year we easily doubled the size of our team this year including many returning riders.  A ‘century’ ride can be a physical and mental challenge but participating as a team gets you through. It’s great to have CSC support such a worthwhile cause in our community and bring the visibility and fundraising to Best Buddies.”

He adds that Julich’s participation was a highlight and inspiration for the other cyclists. “It was great for our clients and partners to be able to spend some time and talk with Bobby about his experience as a professional rider.”

Participants chose to ride a 100-, 62- or 15-mile course along California’s picturesque Pacific Coast Highway. The day also included a run/walk event, as well as a post-race celebration with pop band “Black Eyed Peas.”

This year’s Challenge raised more than $3.6 million for Best Buddies, a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. To learn more and sign up for next year’s race, visit the event’s Web site. 

Cheered on by a crowd of 700, a 40-person conga line — including CSC’s global chief learning officer, Office of Innovation vice president and vice president for culture change — shuffles and kicks its way through an Orlando, Fla., ballroom, while onstage 20 black-clad CSC musicians from nine different countries play Love Shack with full B-52’s attitude.

It’s 10 o’clock on the second night of CSC’s 2008 Technology & Business Solutions Conference. Two hours into an electrifying show that opened with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Travelin’ Band, both the audience and the performers are still going strong.

“Music is a global unifier, a universal language,” says vocalist and CSC business process architect Jill McNeil, the driving force behind CSC’s Global Jam. “Even if your mannerisms or culture or idioms are misunderstood country to country, music like oldies rock and roll is something everyone can tune into and share at the very deepest level.”

As the band seamlessly segues from Love Shack to the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams — with Gwennie Collins, a global security solutions learning manager from Annapolis, Md., at the microphone — it’s hard to believe that, just two days before, most of the members not only had never performed together but had never even met face-to-face. (Read entire story.)

Thanks to generous pledges to the “CSC Gives Back to Military Families” campaign, CSC and its employees raised over $391,000 to help fund a Fisher House “comfort home” on the grounds of the VA Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Our donations will make a vital difference in the lives of those who have given so much to us. Thanks to all employees for giving back to our U.S. military families. Want to contribute? The campaign may be over, but you can still contribute to this important endeavor. For more information, visit the Fisher House or CharityWorks Web site.

Early next year, a team of 14 women from around the world will scale three of Africa’s highest peaks, united in the quest to raise money and awareness for three key issues currently facing Africa: HIV/AIDS, education and environment. One of these women is CSC’s Toni Harris, technical lead on a software development team in Tucson, Arizona.

“In January 2009, I will be participating in a charity event called 3 Peaks 3 Weeks.

The 3 Peaks 3 Weeks Challenge is an annual all-female climbing event that aims to summit three of Africa’s highest peaks in three weeks. The climbs of Mt. Kenya, Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro seek to raise awareness for environmental, educational and health issues, and to support and encourage grassroots community organizations in Kenya and Tanzania.

3 Peaks 3 Weeks is about dedication, motivation and inspiring individuals to climb higher and push harder for Africa’s future than they ever thought possible.

To learn more and donate, visit my Web site. Thanks for your support.”

Johnny Long is one of CSC’s premier security researchers in CSC’s Enforcement, Security and Intelligence group. In his latest book, No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving and Shoulder Surfing, Long reveals the non-technical threats organizations face, and provides no-nonsense advice on how to address them. In addition to his research, he also devotes time to Hackers for Charity. The nonprofit organization provides technical services to charities worldwide, and donates computers and schools supplies to children in need. Johnny spoke with csc.com about how the charity started, and how it’s making a difference.

“My wife went to Uganda, Africa, and worked with an organization called AOET that is helping to empower orphans left behind because of HIV or AIDS. I saw her video footage and I was really moved, because I saw all these kids that didn’t have anything. And it intrigued me enough to go with her the following year. I was thinking I’d do some sort of manual labor, dig trenches or build orphanages.

But as we got closer to the trip I started to realize that they, as an organization, had this incredible need for computer help. In their office they would process kids that needed sponsorships. And the process that they would go through was incredibly painful, with many different computers. And I thought, man, they really need a network. So when I went to Uganda, I basically installed a wireless network in the office with some other team members. And it literally streamlined the process so that they could get more kids sponsored. So my simple basic computer skills—forget all this high-tech hacking stuff—basic networking skills were literally saving lives. And that was really powerful.

When I got back to the United States, the problem haunted me because I looked around and I saw that we had so much. Not just food and houses, but we had so much in the way of technology and expertise. And that’s where Hackers for Charity was born. The idea was to take hackers, who have amazing skills, and connect those skills with charities that need help, that can’t afford it. Hackers would come to us, and we’d put them to work on micro projects helping charity. And we’d help build their resume. That was the idea. Since then, it’s taken off so fast that I can barely hang onto it.

We’re not just doing this technology initiative where we help charities with technology. We’re building classrooms and taking donations from conferences. You know, the pens and pencils and conference bags and all this swag that conferences give away? We take that and turn it into school supplies to give to kids in underdeveloped countries. So, between building classrooms and pulling together school supplies and working on technology projects, we’ve actually got quite a movement going.

And it’s been really encouraging to see that hackers, who have gotten a bad rap for a long time, have an opportunity to show that there’s another side to them. It’s been incredible to see the work that’s been done as a result.”

To learn more, and donate, visit www.hackersforcharity.org.