Laptops4Learning – Cambridgeshire
Laptops4Learning Cambridgeshire offers a sustainable solution to allow companies to deal with their surplus tech, while addressing digital exclusion in our county. Our circular repair and reuse model saves e-waste and CO2 emissions, helping our environment, while bringing the benefits of digital inclusion to those in need across Cambridgeshire.
We securely data erase to Government standard with certification, and repair and refurbish tech, making it plug-and-play ready for distribution through our network of partner charities. Get in touch to see how your redundant tech can help both our environment and our local Cambridgeshire community.
Laptops4Learning offers you a solution that makes your redundant tech sustainable and available for social good, providing you with:
- A Sustainability Report, showing environmental impacts saved
- Secure data erasure certificates to Government standard, covering concerns around data breach (we have been erasing data on devices since 1995)
- Corporate Social Responsibility feedback –showing who has benefited from your tech, with good news stories for company newsletters or social media
- Money back where applicable for use within the company or for funds to support a charity with which you work
We are proud of our record so far, with our circular repair and reuse model delivering more than 4000 devices to enable digital inclusion, and saving more than 7,000kgs of eWaste and over 890,000kgs of CO2 emissions. Working with us makes companies’ IT refresh strategies sustainable -as expert repairers we get maximum yields from the tech we collect, breaking down non-working devices for spares and ensuring that nothing goes to waste.
An increasing impact in Cambridgeshire
We work with an increasing number of charities and organisations in Cambridgeshire and currently support the below with tech donations:
- It Takes a City
- Concrete Rose
- Cambridge Refugee Resettlement Campaign
- Cambs CVS
- Winter Comfort
- Cambridge Street Pastors
- Cambridge Online
- Kickstart Coffee
- Netherhall School
- New Horizons
- Turtle Dove
Our work is only possible with the support of businesses in supplying their surplus tech, and some of the local companies we currently work with are:
- IESO Group
- Computer Service Centre
- AB Agri
- Cambridge Cognition
Devices from these companies have gone to Cambridge Refugee Resettlement Campaign to support Ukrainian families arriving in Cambridgeshire and to KidsOut to support disadvantaged children, among others.
Our service and expertise
We urgently need more tech to help us end the blight of digital exclusion on people’s lives, and be kind to our planet. We provide:
- Purchase of your surplus tech – giving you money back for your IT upgrade, or to support a charity of your choice
- Secure collection at your convenience
- Full audit of equipment
- Secure data erasure, to HMG Infosec 5 Enhanced, with full certification by serial number, carried out by our tech company, experts at data handling since 2011 and covering you against data breach concerns
- Information back for your CSR with details of who has been helped by your surplus tech
We take all surplus tech from hand-held through to server, with the ability to data erase on- and off-site and decommission server set ups, if required.
Keeping your data safe
All data-bearing devices collected are securely data erased to HMG InfoSec Standard 5 Enhanced, with full certification by serial number provided by our tech company Veritas Digital Services.
https://vimeo.com/user86225256 - Vimeo link showing VDS engineers and our services
How your tech helps others
After secure data erase, the tech we collect is repaired ready for sustainable re-use; as repairers we increase the yield and aim to LeaveNotrace. Hand-held Items are donated to our partner charities or sold affordably. We trade server and networking equipment back into the Third Party Maintenance Industry, and these sales enable further donations of tech to support our partner charities’ work in tackling digital exclusion. Our solution uses sustainable tech 4 social good, reducing digital inequality and the negative impact on our environment - please see more details on who we have helped both on our website, and our 2021 Impact Report, below:
https://www.laptops4learning.co.uk/impactreport
Call to action
There is so much more work to be done, particularly with the cost-of-living crisis and the energy crisis bringing rampant inflation and huge energy bills, even with Government help. As ever, it is the disadvantaged who suffer most when crises hit. If you already have to buy the lowest-priced items, there is no trade-down available to help cushion the impact of inflation on your household budget. In these circumstances, buying a digital device will be out of the question.
Yet we know that digital access brings so many benefits in terms of education, communication, access to services and shopping. It is a cruel irony that the most disadvantaged could get the most benefit from online access, yet are excluded from it, compounding their disadvantage and perpetuating their lower life chances.
With our technical expertise in data handling and repair, and our proven track record of getting help to those in need, by working with Laptops4Learning you can make your surplus tech both sustainable and working for social good.
