Remembering Steve Jobs
The Seva family joins the world in celebrating Steve's life

As we all mourn the passing of Steve Jobs, Seva has a unique appreciation for his generosity.  While working away in his garage, Steve made the first significant donation to Seva. His support made it possible for Seva to launch the Nepal Blindness Program -- considered by many to be one of the most comprehensive eye care programs in the developing world.

It meant a lot to everyone with Seva that this young guy working to make a difference through technology thought enough of our work to make a cash gift. Participating as an advisor in Seva’s early meetings,  Steve recognized the vital nature of eye care data for program planning and quality assurance. His donation of one of the first Apple IIs and VisiCalc enabled Seva’s US and Nepali team to enter and analyze eye care survey results.  When the helicopter used in the survey needed a replacement engine, Steve's gift of computer communications tools came to the rescue.  Results of the survey charted the course for hundreds of thousands of sight saving surgeries in the years since. Steve and Laurene helped Seva celebrate its 25th anniversary and the legacy of service made possible by his early gifts.

As Seva Board member Jahanara Romney reflected the evening of Steve’s passing:

Steve Jobs is being adored across all media lines.  Tributes after tributes on all stations and part of every conversation, like the night John Lennon died.  And all so
well deserved.  The span of Steve’s life has brought advanced computer tools--
like the ones we used to marvel at in Nepal that took up a giant building
and used up so much power it could shut down the whole of Kathmandu -- into a stylish box in our kitchens and children's rooms.  I am awed by his resume.  But when I remember that he gave the first money to allow us early idealists to start
and nurture Seva which is now grown into real force for good, I appreciate him all the more, and will miss him.