WHO WE ARE & WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR
The Problem
Economic growth and a dynamic new Indian economy has meant that prosperity in the nation has increased as a whole, but not all of its citizens share equally in this, with socioeconomic gaps being widened even further. Oxfam rates the Indian 1% as holding more than 77% of our national wealth - by all means an unsustainable, unequal and deeply unfair model.
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No more is this evident than in education, with India simultaneously having some of the best schools in the world as well as vast numbers of people who are deprived of access to education.
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The effects of the pandemic have only exacerbated this existing problem, further widening wealth gaps through spikes in unemployment that have disproportionately ravaged the bottom 50% of the socio-economic pyramid. In education, the ‘new normal’ and distance learning situation have mandated the use of laptops as educational instruments - something which our core demographic can’t necessarily afford, meaning that the already suboptimal quality of education has further deteriorated in the past 11 months.
The Solution
Over 218 million new laptops were purchased in FY 2019-20, and most have been bought to replace older ones. The largest culprit of laptop replacement is corporate downcycling, and the United States alone dumps 130,000 laptops a year. Most of this e-waste is not discarded because it has stopped working, but because it has simply failed to remain cutting-edge or sufficient for corporate purposes. Our solution is a bridge connecting those who have these surplus laptops - companies/individual donors - and those who desperately need them - underprivileged students - by streamlining the donation process to ensure that the laptops can get where they’re needed, and be made available to those who need them.
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It is our hope that the provision of zero-cost IT solutions will go some way to reducing the impact of the pandemic on India’s most vulnerable demographics - its underprivileged children - by allowing them to remain competitive with their peer group and make use of the internet and the opportunities/scholarships it can provide for their futures.
Why Us?
Fortunate enough to be born into lives of relative comfort and privilege, we see it as imperative that we give back to society, to give thanks for the privileged situations we’ve been born into. With personal experience in talking to and understanding the problems faced by underprivileged school students in India, it seemed obvious to us that we could make a significant difference in a lot of lives that have not been as fortunate as ours. We aim to collect a monthly target of 15 laptops by July 2021, and donate them to NGOs who currently work in the education space. By acting as an intermediary service between those who have laptops and those who need them, we hope to form connections between corporates/individual donors and students of lesser means. Ours is a comprehensive, transparent and accountable service over the middle sections of the donation supply chain, and we hope to partner with delivery services in the city to ensure our ability to fulfil last mile logistics in the future.