On 23 February 2008 a team from Computing will set out to cycle 350km in just six days across Cuba, covering some seriously mountainous terrain.
 

Computing editor Bryan Glick, publisher Robin Booth and recruitment sales manager Jonathan Cooney will be braving the elements and battering their legs, backsides and other unmentionables to raise £10,000 for Computing’s charity partner, Computer Aid International.
 

The cycle challenge aims to raise more than £40,000 to fund the distribution and set-up of refurbished PCs and IT equipment donated by Computing readers for a telemedicine project in Africa. 
 

Computers provided by Computer Aid are helping to save lives in rural health clinics in some of the most isolated communities in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are just 12.5 doctors per 100,000 people compared to the European average of 340. Laptops supplied by Computer Aid, together with scanners and digital cameras, have been installed in clinics across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. 
 

These clinics are regularly visited by flying doctors who can use the equipment to send x-ray images, medical notes and digital photographs of critically-ill patients to clinical specialists hundreds of miles away. By enabling instant expert diagnosis, this project is ensuring that medical conditions can be treated promptly and accurately with life-saving consequences. 
 
The project is run by the African Medical Research and Education Foundation and provides a dramatic example of the way in which PCs donated in the UK are serving on the front-line against Africa’s biggest killers: HIV/AIDS, respiratory disease, malaria and water-borne infections
 
The rural telemedicine project currently has just 12 PCs in four centres. But it needs many more. Computer Aid needs to raise £40,000 to finance a further 43 centres based in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.  
 

Please give generously! Many thanks. 
 

Bryan, Robin and Jonathan