For this year’s Leeds Digital Festival, 100% Digital Leeds hosted a webinar ‘Empowerment Through Technology: Donate your digital equipment for good’, in partnership with Solidaritech. The webinar was developed by Leeds Digital Volunteering Partnership, as part of 100% Digital Leeds’s Tech sector support key initiative.
When we’re working with migrants, we see that these people are some of society’s poorest. They’re not the poorest in terms of skills. They are the poorest in that they only have £37 a week. There’s no way they can afford a smartphone or a laptop to do things like find secure housing, access health services, and stay in touch with friends and family. We’re a lifeline for people, and we do it all through donated tech.”
Ben McKenna, CEO, Solidaritech.
Solidaritech repurposes unwanted laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones, passing them on to asylum seekers and refugees without digital equipment. The webinar informs businesses and other organisations of the impact of donating unwanted equipment to Solidaritech, and the processes they have in place to enable secure donating. Solidaritech then work with local organisations supporting those from migrant backgrounds to gift the equipment to people who need it most. Having a digital device and connectivity helps people resolve their immigration status, pursue studies, and start their lives in their new country.
Webinar overview
The webinar features:
- Ben McKenna, CEO at Solidaritech, who gives an overview of the donations process from collection, through secure wiping and refurbishment, to the gifting of equipment to the end beneficiaries.
- Darren Stocks, IT Service Lead at Emerald Publishing, who shares their experience of donating equipment to Solidaritech, and how donating devices help the business to achieve its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals.
- David Skivington, English at Home Volunteer Manager at Leeds Asylum Seekers’ Support Network, who shares the difference donated equipment makes to the lives of the refugees and asylum seekers his organisation supports.
Solidaritech
100% Digital Leeds has been working with Solidaritech for several years. Formed in 2017, Solidaritech is a Community Interest Company that exists to help refugees and asylum seekers across Yorkshire get access to technology by repurposing unwanted laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones. All donated devices are safely and professionally wiped of all data, with any problems repaired, and new Operating Systems and suitable software installed for the next users. In the last 12 months Solidaritech has refurbished and gifted over 1,300 devices to digitally excluded people across Yorkshire and the Humber.
To donate unwanted laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones, complete Solidaritech’s Donate Form. For more information about the donations process contact Solidaritech on 01274 288 910 and hello@solidaritech.com.