2008 Corporate Social Responsibility Report

CSR Report: Global Citizens

Global citizenship is an important component of Sun's three core principles: Innovate, Act, and Share. Sun shares talent, technologies, and resources through a program of volunteering, donations, and educational support to provide access to technology and to create opportunity.

We encourage our employees to be responsible citizens in the communities where they work and live, and we create opportunities for them to donate their time and technical expertise. We also use our resources and talents to help people make better use of technology and help close the digital divide.

Sun Continues to Support TED Prize Winners

The annual Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Prize is awarded to three exceptional individuals who propose One Wish to Change the World. Winners receive a cash prize and support to grant their wish. Sun has supported at least one TED Prize winner each year since 2005.

One of the 2008 TED Prize winners is Neil Turok from Cambridge University, whose wish is to "unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein." Sun will support this initiative by replacing the computer system at Cape Town's African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) with state-of-the-art Sun Ray thin-client desktops and Sun servers, plus 100 workstations.

The AIMS flagship school in Cape Town will serve as a model for AIMS in other African nations. Power efficiency and resiliency from power disruption are critical to enabling AIMS schools to operate in austere, often adverse environmental conditions, and this led AIMS to choose Sun Ray thin clients and Sun servers for their model IT infrastructure. At 4 watts per system, the Sun Ray 2 thin client is at least 20 times more energy efficient than the fat clients previously implemented by AIMS.


Sun's Support of the TED Prize
Year TED Prize Winner Wish Sun's Contribution
2005 Bono, singer, humanitarian "To help build a social movement of more than 1 million American activists for Africa" Technology and support for instant sign-ups at U2 concerts
2006 Cameron Sinclair, cofounder, Architecture for Humanity "To create a community that actively embraces open-source design to generate innovative and sustainable living standards for all" Technical support and hardware to create and run the Open Architecture Network
2007 Former President William J. Clinton "To build a sustainable, high-quality rural health system for the whole country [of Rwanda]" Hardware, software, services, training, and infrastructure
2008 Neil Turok, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge University "To unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein" Upgrades and increased capacity for the computing environment of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences