For decades, nonprofits have been talking about how to use technology effectively. While the tools and platforms have kept evolving—CD-ROMs are ancient relics, having a website has become a standard part of doing business, and new buzzwords abound—technology companies’ outlooks seem to be changing too.
The city of Arusha sits only about 65 miles from Mount Kilimanjaro but across two continents and nearly 10,000 miles from Mountain View, San Francisco, and San Jose, California. Last month, employees from tech companies headquartered there—Facebook, Pinterest, and Cisco, respectively—made the trip to East Africa as volunteers with Silicon Valley-based nonprofit Team4Tech.