There are a few initiatives going on, however they are not very productive. I live in a third world country, so let me provide some context. I am assuming here

There are a few initiatives going on, however they are not very productive. I live in a third world country, so let me provide some context. I am assuming here that you wish to help children who are severely disadvantaged, i.e. street children and orphans. - The programming world requires you to read, and most children cannot. Solving this problem is of a higher priority. - Children suffer from malnourishment. Sure, you can give them a computer, but that isn't going to keep them fed. - Begging is better. Most poor parents have their children begging, since it does offer a good income, so you must provide funds for attending your classes. Free is not good enough. In fact, the government pays families to send their kids to school, and people still do not. - Programming requires a proper environment. Making an application from start to finish, and then making it a successful commercial application is not easy. Training a software engineer, takes a long time, and has quite a few prerequisites, in the end, one might be lucky to have 1% of the original number remaining. Hence, if you can solve the literacy problem, compounded with the financial and societal problems then sure, why not? But otherwise, one is merely coming here to make oneself feel good, not to do real good. Changing the lives of the poor is a very long term process, and I for one can tell you that it might seem impossible but it isn't. It just requires a crazy amount of work.