Aussie Charity Rebuilds Himalayan School Computer Lab for Christmas

THOUSANDS of Earthquake affected Nepalese school children will think Santa came early, with an Australian entrepreneur planning to spend Christmas rebuilding a local school computer lab.

The Give a Laptop founder, Ryan Saville is in the Himalayas this month setting up laptops donated by Australians as part of a bigger plan to re-build a computer lab destroyed by the quake.

“The next Einstein or Jobs could be a child living in a remote village in Nepal and we’re really humbled to be here, giving back to this community.” said Ryan.

“Usually, we send one laptop at a time but for this trip, I am delivering 25 thanks to our donors and a generous computer recycling business in Queensland.”

The charity was set up after Ryan returned from a trip to Everest Base Camp almost 12 months ago where he witnessed the devastation at the earthquakes epicentre first hand.

“I was compelled to do something to help and had initially arranged for Colgate to send over 7.5 thousand toothbrushes.” said Ryan.

Ryan was walking around handing out toothbrushes to villagers when he came across the school and the decimated computer room.

“There were about 15 jurassic desktop computers lying around which were soo old, they still had floppy drives,” he said.

“It was there amongst the ruins of one of the oldest places on earth that the idea for Give a Laptop was born,” he said.

In his search for larger donors, Ryan connected with G1 Asset Managements Co-Founder, Joel Prokic.

In Australia, electronic waste is growing three times faster than any other type of waste, with millions of televisions, computers and mobile phones discarded each year. 

Joel Prokic has built a successful business keeping more than 500 tonnes of e-waste out of landfill by repurposing as much possible and recycle what can't be reused.

“One of the bigger concerns for anyone considering giving a laptop or computer away is whether the data has been securely destroyed,” said Joel.

“We offer complete assurance that all the data will be destroyed before any equipment is repurposed.”

G1 Asset Management https://www.g1am.com.au/ specialise in IT asset disposals, relocations and deployments across Australia.

“After hearing Ryan’s story we jumped on board and have initially provided 20 laptops at our cost for his trip to Nepal.” 

Over the past 6 months Ryan had been working out the logistics of getting the donated laptops to Kathmandu.

“We can send one laptop at a time for $30 from Australia, but for this trip I have had to speak with customs officials to make sure I could travel with all of the laptops,” he said.

“Its not the easiest process but I got the all clear.”

Ryan plans to spend two months in the Himalayas setting up the laptops and software for the schools pilot computer lab.

He plans to spend Christmas Day on Skype catching up with family back home.

If you’re planning on upgrading your laptop in the near future, consider donating your old one to the charity at https://www.givealaptop.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/GiveALaptop.org/videos/132613464055293/