peduli.org

Shutdown Day is a non-profit organization registered in the province of Quebec, Canada. Shutdown Day was founded with the sole purpose of spreading awareness about the pitfalls and dangers that lie in the excessive use of television, computers, and computing equipment like game boxes, cell phones, music players, online social websites, etc. that impinge on social space and interaction amongst our communities.

Shutdown Day also aims to partner with other like-minded organizations in promoting sustainable development, especially in the area of social behavior relating to the effects modern technology.

History
Shutdown Day started off in early 2007, when Denis Bystrov, a computer programmer living in Montreal, Canada, realized that he spends too much time with his computer and wants one day to spend entirely with his family.

Denis then teamed up with his friends Michael Taylor, a former trade floor occupant in stock markets in London, England and David Bridle, a part time film maker from Cardiff, Wales, to throw up a challenge on the Internet, through the website, called shutdownday.org The idea was simple:

“Do you think you can stay away from your computers for at least 24 hours a day, and if yes, can you pledge to do so?”

What began as an innocent question, fire-balled into a mammoth Internet chain reaction, drawing millions of viewers from across the world. Here is a summary of the results from the Shutdown Day 2007 campaign:

• The Shutdown Day website received more than 1.6 million visitors in the one month of the campaign.
• More than 65,000 people participated in the campaign by actually shutting down their computers for 24 hours on the 24th of March, 2007.
• Shutdown Day promotional clip was broadcast on YouTube and received more than 1.1 million hits.
• 450,000 visitors signed up for country locator on Shutdown Day website.
• The idea of Shutdown Day featured on more than 200,000 online forums discussions, and also in television interviews, and popular media, including Globe and Mail, CNN, Fox News and TV5.

Later in 2007, as Denis was discussing the future of Shutdown Day with another friend, Ashutosh Rajekar, also a career software developer and first hand victim of excessive use of computer technology, he realized that both had some interesting ideas to share regarding the future direction of Shutdown Day. Eventually, both Denis and Ashutosh decided to team up to register as a non-profit organization in the province of Quebec.

Now Denis and Ashutosh, assisted by a few close fiends and hundreds of volunteers from different countries, aim to make the Shutdown Day project a success, and help people realize that outside computer screen there is indeed a beautiful world to be enjoyed.

http://www.shutdownday.org/about/