Above: TTCS representative Simon Fraser with Sharmain Maharaj, principal of the Sangre Grande Hindu School. Photo courtesy the TTCS.
The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) donated 20 computers refurbished by the organisation to a school in Sangre Grande and an NGO in Cedros last week.
On Friday, TTCS representative Simon Fraser brought five refurbished laptops to the Sangre Grande Hindu School and 15 refurbished desktops to the Cedros Charity Foundation (CCF) on Saturday.
The CCF will be using them to set up a combination cybercafe, homework centre and library for children in the south-western peninsula.
The TTCS has been accepting older computers from businesses and individuals since the pandemic pushed schools to remote learning in 2020 and has refurbished them into machines capable of running recent versions of Windows.
To do that, volunteers from the organisation clean the systems, upgrade memory, replace spinning hard drives with solid-state drives, install Windows for Education and install wireless modules for network connectivity.
The volunteer team is Cecil Aqui (The Refurb Ninja), Dev Teelucksingh, Ryan Shripat and Simon Fraser, who have collectively prepared 300 computers for reuse during the pandemic.
The systems continue to be donated by banks, utilities and at least one government agency as they rotate out older systems.
To prepare the systems for modern use, the TTCS depends on donations to buy the SSDs, replacement batteries, replacement power supplies, CPU paste, WiFi adapters, keyboards, headphones and mice that are needed to bring the systems back into functional use.
According to Simon Fraser in a recent report on the project, “We’ve ordered about 60 SSDs, a dozen WiFi adapters and power supplies in the last 60 days alone.”
They have currently exhausted their donation funds and welcome support for the venture and are now subsidising these purchases out of pocket.
“We’ve also made some contacts in Tobago with the THA and a Police Youth Club,” Fraser noted in the report on activities.
“We are waiting for them to make a formal request. When we receive same, we will ask someone to visit the facilities there to make sure that they are ready to put the machines to good use.”
They have currently exhausted their donation funds and welcome support for the venture.
Anyone interested in finding out more about the TTCS Computer Refurbishment Project, and supporting the project can visit this page on their website to get more details. To get an idea of the scale of the parts involved in the refurbishing, the TTCS has provided their current Amazon Wish List of parts and components.
