Eschewing the tradition of giving developers free phones at their annual Google I/O conference this year, Google has announced that this year, they’ll be doing the opposite instead. In an announcement on the official Google code blog, the company has mentioned that at the upcoming Google I/O event, they will be accepting donations of any unlocked Google phones that you aren’t using anymore. The phones will then be donated to various projects all around the world. In the past, donated phones have been given to Grameem’s AppLab Community Knowledge Worker Initiative in Uganda, Save the Elephants in Kenya, V-Day in the Democratic Republic of Congo, VillageReach in Mozambique, VetAid in Tanzania & Kenya, and UNHCR in Central Africa.
So if you have some T-Mobile G1, Nexus One or Nexus S phones lying around the house, why not give them up for the greater good instead? Like in the words of Google’s Product Marketing Manager, “Although it might seem old to you, that device could mean a new beginning when placed in the right hands.” The Google I/O event will be held next month, May 10-11, at the Moscone Center, San Francisco.