The
Education Connection Project
Low-Cost Home Technology
New & Donated Computer Parts
Approach: The first barier to the digital divide is access to technology. Specifically home-based access to computers, the Internet, and an online community. Just as the United States recognized that a reliable and comprehensive transporation system was central to the stability of the country, the solution to the digital divide MUST be a cost effective system of ensuring that EVERYONE in the country has access to the technology in which to participate in this NEW TECHNOLOGICAL ERA.
The Education Connection has investiaged several approaches to home-based computers and recomends a system where schools and community-based organizations would purchase multi-media computers, composed of new and used parts, at the beginning of the school year . At the end of the year, the computers would be offered for sale to the familes for approximately their purchase price. This approach brings cost of ownership as low as $50 per year per computer.
Partners: State of Delaware Infrastructure Projects, DCANet Incorporated, Americorps Computer Recycling KickStart Project of Delaware, The School District of Philadelphia's Techcorps Urban Technology Project, Corporation for National Service's Computer Re-Use Collaborative, Goodwill Industries.
Computer Activities: After experimenting with new and recycled computers over the previous 2 years, we built 210 computers that contained mostly new parts with donated monitors and keyboards at a cost of $260 per computer (Microsoft donates the software for the use of this project). Experience has shown that any part that needs specific software drivers or BIOS settings needs to be identical from machine to machine. Because of this, the motherboard, the CPU, the modem etc… were all purchased new. The monitor and keyboard were acquired from the Americorps KickStart Program and Non-Profit Technology Resources.
The Americorps KickStart Program in Delaware assembled almost all of the computers in the WHYY studios this past summer and then some of the alumni from the Urban Technology Project configured the computers. The computers were all multi-media PCs with new components that included: a Cyrix MII 333 processor, 31 Megabytes of RAM, 1 Megabyte of 800x600 SVGA video ram, a 56k internal modem, a 24x CDROM drive, Microsoft Windows98, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and a 2+ gigabyte hard drive. And in order to ensure a systematic approach to how donated equipment would be acquired in the future, Education Connection participated in the Corporation for National Service's Computer Re-Use Collaborative.
The plan for this coming year is to put our experience to practice by working with Goodwill Industries and the re-use collaborative to build a scalable model that could provide this project and other projects with low-cost computers for next year. This coming summer, Goodwill Industries will utilize its acquisition resources to pickup and test low level pentium computers that meet specifications for the Education Connection Project. After satisfactory testing, Goodwill Instustries will take out the motherboard, CPU, fan and memory and then deliver the remaining parts to area high schools as part of their welfare to work development model. By supplying the Education Connection project with these tested parts, the Education Connection Project will pay Goodwill Industries $30 per computer. The retail price of these parts are predicted to be over $100 per computer but low supplies in the marketplace make the standardized acquisition of these parts impossible. The realistic cost to these parts is probably closer to $150 per computer
Over the past few years, the Education Connection Project has purchased equipment from 2 principal vendors in order to insure competitive pricing and quality service. These were A&N Labs in Edison New Jersey and ITG Computing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As the project will be purchasing somewhat less new equipment this year and has become more comfortable with ITG's prices, its more flexible return policies, and its closer proximity to the project, a decision was made to purchase only from this vendor this year. An order has been placed with ITG to find pricing on 200 motherboards, 200 AMD K6-2 333 mhz chips, 200 fans, 200 24x CDROMs, 200 Speakers, 200 Mice, 200 64 meg memory chips for approximately $190 per set.
This would bring the total cost of the computers to $220 including monitor for each computer this year. The goal for this year would be to sell the computer at the end of the year for the cost of the computer plus software thus making the cost of delivering computers to families almost nothing for the year. This should prove to be even more scalable for other projects and cheaper than last year's computers which cost $255 per computer.
At the end of the year last year, families were offered the opportunity to purchase their computers at $275 (The computers last year cost about $350 per computer). About 80 of the computers were sold, the others being put in storage in search of a project that could provide support.
This year, the plan will be the same as in previous years, but as always, the goal will be to convince its partners that we should be able to lower the costs of Internet access by showing the benefits above. Last year, the cost of Internet access was $150 per person per year. This year, the project hopes to lower that cost to $125 per person per year. It is the goal of the project to eventually bring this cost down to $75 per person per year.
Suggestions: The recommendation for school students is to build computers that are identical out of new and used parts, but your needs might be different. Check out the possibilities with local organizations such as Urban Tech, NTR, E-Peddlers and, for Internet access, check out DCANet. The cost of computers in the Education Connection Project are projected to be about $400. At the end of the year they are sold for about $300 for a net cost of about $100 to the project. In addition, there is a cost of Internet access and online development that amounts to about $175 per computer for the year.
Questions:The cost of software is a significant cost when configuring a computer. You want a computer at home that matches that of your training facilities. The computers in the Education Connection Project are configured with Microsoft Office because Microsoft Office is running in most of the computer labs in the schools in Delaware. The lowest cost of Microsoft software I have found has been about $125 per computer for Windows98 and Office. Do you know what kind of software you will need to have loaded on your computers?
It is extremely difficult to lend computers to families and then take them back in a short period of time. Ten months is reasonable. 2 months is impossible. How long will your participants have the computers before they must return them?
The Education Connection Project works with schools. It is not easy for schools to sell the equipment themselves. Because of this, WHYY had to sell the equipment and then credit the various school accounts. Does your organization have the capability of selling the equipment at the end of the year and keeping track of all of the orders?
Timeline Low-Cost Home Computers |
Before June |
Create computer specifications and line up prospective hardware partners |
June |
Order and Test prospective computers |
July/August |
Order and deliver unassembled CPUs to schools |
September |
Order and deliver monitors, keyboards, mice and speakers to schools. |
June |
Sell Computers and pickup the rest. |
Page last updated on 08/13/00
Send comments to the Education Connection Project Director, Jay Cohen
