The idea
Our focus is to get devices to young people in education who find themselves digitally excluded. We define this as; either not having a laptop or PC to work on and/or being able to connect to the internet at home. We’re prioritising getting devices to young people who are ineligible for government support that need to be able to access learning at home and for them to really be able to reach their full potential.
But that isn’t the whole story - we don’t believe that raising money to just simply buy brand new devices is the answer. Why? Well, it is estimated that there’s some 11 million unused devices in the UK alone. By taking those devices, we can give them a new lease of life to help empower a young person who finds themselves digitally excluded. It’s a circular solution to an ever growing problem and we want to show that we can sustainably help provide tech to everyone in education who needs it. Digital exclusion and environmental sustainability need not be mutually exclusive.
What we'll deliver
- Professional refurbishing of a minimum of 500 donated devices
- This could increase to over 950 devices as we scale up our operation and reduce costs
- Purchasing up to 100 already refurbished laptops to make an immediate impact and help those who are most in need.
- Improve operations & lower lead time on donated devices being ready for redistribution (8-10 weeks at start of campaign)
Why it's a great idea
Our project is two-fold and addresses two key issues; access to education and the impact on the environment. We’re working to deliver two of the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development; Goal 4 Quality Education and Goal 12 Responsible Consumption and Production. Here’s why we need to make our project a reality:
Let’s take education first. According to the Children’s Commission & Ofcom, it is estimated that over 1 million young people in education currently don’t have the access to digital resources and technology to enable them to learn at home. This is a combination of not having laptops or PCs and/or not having reliable access to the internet.
By taking disused and unwanted tech, we’re able to give laptops, PCs and tablets a new lease of life to help young people access the learning resources they need at home. School budgets are already stretched and our project absorbs the cost in order to get a young person up and running in no time.
Steps to get it done
- Securely wipe and restore devices
- Distribute devices into the community via the Tower Hamlets Education Partnership
- Help individuals connect to the internet
- Empower individuals with access to digital skills training
TechInclusionUK and our partners take care of securely restoring every device, meaning it’s secure and safe. The costs per device account for disc sterilisation, OS conversion, cleaning, logistics and labour.
And now the environment. As we have identified earlier, it's estimated there are around 11 million unused devices in the UK. One of the biggest reasons people don’t recycle their unused technology is because of data security and lack of education around how to recycle. But each unused device that you have under your bed or in a cupboard, can be reused or recycled.
By utilising and extending the life cycle of these devices, we’re able to divert e-waste from being prematurely recycled, ending up in landfill or simply just not being used! We are a member of Social Enterprise UK, the national body for social enterprises and we hope to leverage this network and community to our advantage. Our first project is supported by volunteers from Covid Tech Support and We Make Change UK.
