When it comes to the quickly outdated world of computers, the adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” has rarely applied. Once users upgrade to faster, flashier models — usually every 18 to 24 months — their “old” computers are considered “has-beens.” A few get recycled or reused, but the majority (close to 90 percent) are stashed in the basement, forgotten in a closet, or worse yet, tossed in the trash. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, computers are ranked the nation’s fastest-growing category of solid waste.

Enter Tim Anderson MPA 2000. A former charter school headmaster and zoological society director, Anderson found this scenario depressing, so while he was at the Kennedy School he decided to figure out how to wrangle second lives out of orphaned computers. He talked to his professors, researched the Internet for hours, and consulted with international students in the Mid-Career program over Thanksgiving dinner and afternoon coffee breaks. Eventually, he realized that while schools in the United States were becoming more and better equipped, far fewer in developing countries were up to speed. His conclusion was to become a high-tech trash picker of sorts by starting the World Computer Exchange, a nonprofit that collects working computers and ships them to local schools and learning centers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

It seemed like the perfect idea, he says, until others started telling him it was already being done.

“When I first started doing the outline for the organization, everyone said, ‘Oh, that’s happening all over the place. Lots of people are doing it,’” says Anderson, from the nonprofit’s headquarters in Hull, Massachusetts. “It was daunting because I couldn’t find any of them. Eventually I found a few, but most were working with new computers and weren’t located in the United States.”

Today Anderson and his small staff of mostly volunteers are starting out fairly small, with one shipment of computers and monitors expected to go out each month. In April, after a year of planning and organizing, their first cargo of 380 computers was shipped to Cameroon, in Western Africa, in a 40-foot container that weighed an estimated 12 tons. A second shipment went to Nigeria in May, followed by shipments to Benin and Ecuador.

“We’re still experimenting with the shipments,” Anderson said, noting that before he packed for Cameroon, he asked more experienced shippers to write down exactly what they did. “I leaned that way, rather than by trial and error, so it turned out to be more efficient and faster.”

Even with good advice, it took 47 volunteers — including kids from City Year and neighboring high schools — spread across eight tables to prepare each Internet-accessible computer to make sure the operating system and software were intact, all the buttons and wires worked, and that each monitor had a compatible keyboard and cords.

As complicated as this sounds, Anderson says the packing, like the computer gathering, is actually the easier part of the work. The harder part is what happens across the ocean with the nongovernmental organizations and schools that serve as partners.

“I expected the problems would be more on our end, such as logistics and coming up with money,” he says. “But the difficult part is making sure our partners are ready for the shipment. We’ve had to put shipments on hold because they weren’t.”

Anderson says this is why the process has been so slow and can take a full year from the time he initially contacts a partner before the shipment is ready to go out.

“There may not even be a place to plug the computers in, no one to maintain them or set up networks, no security, and no training,” he says, referring to the 39 countries they are currently working with to develop implementation plans. “It’s not like here where we get a computer and immediately plug it in. There’s also the enormous cost of electricity. We don’t pay for that. That’s their job. They welcome the computers and the opportunity, but can’t always figure out the logistics or how to pay for the shipping or upkeep.”

Recently, the exchange worked out an agreement with the United Nations to cover direct shipping costs for countries involved in their Sustainable Development Networking Programme, like Cameroon. In other countries, money is raised privately at fundraisers or from companies, like the radio station in Uganda that made a large donation to cover some of the costs for its September shipment. Other locations have also decided to charge adults to use the computers during after-school and weekend hours. Anderson, who learned in May that the exchange was designated by the World Economic Forum as one of six educational information technology projects that merited expansion and traveled to Durban, South Africa, for its June summit, says that while the exchange’s main focus is getting monthly shipments on track and eventually moving to a bi-monthly or even weekly schedule, it’s also dedicated to extending beyond computer donations. As its mission statement says, the exchange intends to “act as a broker in bridging the international digital divide, promoting cultural understanding between students in the United States and developing countries, and facilitating the use of technology and experiential education in education reform.”

A big part of this plan includes partnering students in the United States with students in countries that receive computers through shared Web sites and an “e-pal” program — an online version of the traditional pen pal. Surprisingly, Anderson says, he’s having trouble getting U.S. schools involved.

“We have 700 schools overseas that have signed on and are interested,” he says. “We have a few kids connected so far, but we’re desperately looking for U.S. schools. When it works out, it’ll be great for both sides because [the partnering] teaches civics, community service, geography, and teamwork.” And, particularly for American students like his 13-year-old son who interviewed a few of Anderson’s partners in India and Cameroon via e-mail for his school newspaper, access to people from other countries is something important that they might never have otherwise.

“When I was at the Kennedy School, I brought people home from different countries to spend weekends and to share holidays,” Anderson says, noting one particular Thanksgiving meal. “It gave my kids pause. They were giving thanks for a new Nintendo game, while the Kennedy School students were giving thanks for being free and alive. It was a true learning
experience.”

—Lory Hough

For information on how to donate a computer or to contact Tim Anderson, go to www.worldcomputerexchange.org/.

photo: Ashley Lazonick