RitzBitz

Melissa Arnot, Dave Morton, and Jeff Dossett are shown here with an African banner in Khumjung, Nepal, on their way to South Base Camp of Mt. Everest — the main staging area for their mission to reach the top of the 29,035-foot mountain.

A three-member climbing team sponsored by Dell, Microsoft, MSN, and MSNBC is on the flanks of Mt. Everest hoping to reach the summit as part of a campaign to call attention to AIDS in Africa. Everest Team INSPI(RED), representing the (PRODUCT) RED movement, led by Jeff Dossett of Washington state, who is executive producer and general manager of the MSN Media Network, hopes to scale the 29,035-foot peak by late May. The effort is aimed at raising awareness for (RED), an initiative that partners with companies such as Dell, Windows and other major brands to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

  The climbers are chronicling their ascent with digital cameras and camcorders loaded with SanDisk flash memory cards, including SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition, SanDisk Extreme IV, and SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash cards, and the new Sandisk VideoHD SDHC cards. The expedition also has SanDisk microSD cards for their mobile satellite phones, SanDisk Cruzer Titanium USB flash drives for file backups and SanDisk Sansa Clip audio players to help pass nights spent in their tents.

  The other members of the Everest team, residents of the Pacific Northwest, are professional mountaineering guides Dave Morton and Melissa Arnot. Morton has reached the summit of Everest four times and has climbed extensively in the Himalayas, South America, the Cascades, Alaska, and Russia. Arnot is a guide on Mt. Rainier in Washington and on other peaks worldwide, and is a trainer of wilderness emergency medical technicians with Remote Medical International

  Video camcorders are among the team’s most important gear. They are taking helmet cams and handheld camcorders, including the Canon VIXIA HF10 Dual Flash Memory high-definition model that records to both internal memory and SD/SDHC flash cards. Other gear includes the Canon VIXIA HV30 HD video camcorders, a Canon EOS 5D DSLR camera, a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS, Nikon D300 and D80 DSLR cameras, Motorola (PRODUCT) RED SLVR mobile phones, and Dell (PRODUCT) RED XPS 1330 laptop computers. They also are equipped with portable recharging devices to keep their gear operational.
  (RED) was created by Bono of the band U2, and Bobby Shriver, chairman of DATA to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world’s most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT)RED branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT)RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. Of the 33.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, Africa is home to 68 percent, or 22.5 million of those affected. The disease is the leading cause of death in Africa, with approximately 4,400 people dying every day from AIDS.