Santa Clara, Calif—Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) and Oxfam America today announced a agreement to enlist more supporters to the fair trade movement through a text message petition solution. At Coldplay shows this summer and fall, concertgoers will be invited to text in their support to Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign. The campaign advocates for reform of agricultural and trade policies so that farmers in developing countries can get a fair price for their goods and benefit from international markets.
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"Americans are mobilizing to demand trade justice," said Brian Rawson, national outreach organizer for Oxfam America. "Our agreement with Sun Microsystems helps us get the word out to a young tech-savvy audience, and will help us bring in even more supporters to this effort."<
p>Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign was launched to raise awareness and mobilize support to change international rules so trade can become part of the solution to poverty, not part of the problem. The campaign’s global petition, "The Big Noise," has been signed by almost 8 million people globally and calls on governments, international institutions and multinational companies to trade fairly . Make Trade Fair’s goal is to add more than 2 million supporters to the ranks of the fair trade movement through this campaign and deliver the Big Noise to world trade ministers this December at the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong.
Coldplay Concerts to Bring More Western Supporters to Global Effort
At shows during this summer and fall's "Twisted Logic" tour, Coldplay fans will be shown a video of lead singer Chris Martin visiting poor farmers in Ghana and talking about his support for the Make Trade Fair campaign. The video encourages concertgoers to sign onto Oxfam's Big Noise petition by texting their e-mail address to "TRADE" (87233 on their cell phones). The addresses are captured and cataloged and Sun's technology is being leveraged to initiate each fan's connection to the Make Trade Fair campaign. Immediately, a reply will come from Oxfam, moving the dialogue to the fan's e-mail inbox, and providing the opportunity to further engage with the campaign online.
New Partnership Builds on Previous "Share the Opportunity" Efforts for Sun
This Oxfam relationship is just the latest step in Sun's "Share the Opportunity" initiative, a global effort to help promote participation in social change. Sun's resources were put to work at U2 concerts throughout Europe and the U.S., the historic Live 8 show in Philadelphia and have contributed to the mobilization of millions of individuals. Since the beginning of the campaign in March 2005, more than a quarter million supporters have joined, via text message, the fight to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa and throughout the world. Sun also recently announced a agreements with the United Nations to provide technology, support and training at the UN's series of Youth Leadership Summits, culminating in a global summit to be held next August at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York City in 2006. The summit's mission is to train the next generation of youth leaders to tackle the biggest problems of our age: extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS, environmental devastation and gender inequality.
Sun believes the world is entering a new era – a Participation Age – where dramatically lowered barriers to entry, plummeting device prices, and near-universal connectivity are driving a new round of network participation. From blogs to Java™ technology, SMS messages to Web services, participants are forming communities to drive change, create new businesses, new social services, and new discoveries. This growth in the network economy is fueled by sharing and collaboration among communities interconnected by technology and driven by purpose. Sun also believes that sharing and collaboration in the Participation Age will stimulate innovation to help all participants from across the world grow and prosper.
About Sun Microsystems
A singular vision – "The Network Is The Computer"™ – guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world's most important markets. Sun's philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at sun.com.
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