ODFL to collect ‘laptops for life’

One Dollar For Life (ODFL) will begin collecting used laptop computers for the “Laptops for Life” project on Saturday. Working with Los Altos Rotary on the project, ODFL hopes to collect between 50 and 100 laptops, which will be shipped to central Kenya for use in spreading agricultural knowledge.

“[The project] is … appropriate for Africa because the need is so great,” ODFL President senior Diana Chou said. “Desertification, a consequence of global warming, is greatly damaging Africa’s ability to feed itself.“

ODFL will be collecting laptops until Saturday, January 8 and shipping them off on Monday, January 10.

“[A laptop is] a teaching and a communication tool,” ODFL adviser and social studies teacher Robert Freeman said. “It’s astoundingly powerful.”

According to Freeman, the idea for this project came from ODFL’s partner organization in Kenya, SEANet. SEANet won the third round of the Peace Corp’s international competition for the best idea to improve agricultural self-sufficiency by proposing the “Laptops for Life” project.

The proposed project involves distributing computers to every school in central Kenya and building electronic bulletin boards of “best practices” which promote ideas meant to increase agricultural productivity. These practices range anywhere from what seeds work to what irrigation systems are the best.

“If you can raise agricultural productivity by one percent, you can serve six million people,” Freeman said.

SEANet will use the laptops ODFL collects to control the electronic bulletin boards. Any functioning laptops running Windows ‘98 or more recent operating systems are eligible for donation.

“Since we’re asking for used laptops, a lot of the laptops given to us would have been thrown away eventually, so no cost there,” Diana said. “We give a tax deduction, so [donors] actually make money on that angle.”

According to Freeman, this laptop drive is the first installment of many possible projects in the future. If the project is successful, the club plans to eventually implement it throughout all of Africa in collaboration with SEANet.

“By delivering the necessary electronics, we’re creating a sustainable, self-sufficient agricultural network in the Kenyan community,” Diana said.

All eligible laptops should be brought to the student parking lot. All laptops will be tax-deductable.