Posted: 20/11/23
Students continue to resolve area’s IT poverty
An IT equipment campaign which was piloted in 2020 to assist young people out of digital poverty, is being given a further boost thanks to the skills of West Nottinghamshire College’s computer science students.
Some of the members of the Resolve IT team
The Mansfield-based campaign #WeMakeICTPossible originally approached the college to seek their expertise in computer repairing and upgrading. Students from the college’s Resolve IT learning company took up the gauntlet to repair old laptops and rebuild PCs, ready for distribution to schoolchildren and young people in the community.
The Musketeers CIC charity was founded by three local business owners, Gary Jordan MBE, managing director of GMJ Solutions and chair of Mansfield BID, Martin Rigley, managing director of Lindhurst Engineering and chair of Discover Ashfield, and Katie Cooper-Lewis, director of Grace Consultancy Midlands.
The charity was set up after research showed that approximately 25% of families in Mansfield and Ashfield didn’t have access to a PC, so they wanted to help bridge that gap.
Since the pilot scheme began two years ago with 20 donated pre-loved PCs being sent to the college, well over 500 pieces of equipment have now been diagnosed, repaired and distributed back into the community thanks to the talents of the computer science learning company Resolve IT.
Resolve IT is just one of the college’s learning companies and comprises of computer science students working together to make it a fully-functioning business.
Two members of the original charity are still operating in collaboration with the Resolve IT team from the college to continue the good work of this project.
Resolve IT are working in earnest to bring more old equipment back to a usable state, before the #WeMakeICTPossible team distribute to children in the local community who are in need of digital assets.
Project lead Gary Jordan MBE said: “To have reached this milestone of 500 pieces of old equipment being fully-restored and being put to great use is amazing. To know that children who would previously have not had access to a PC or a laptop can now make use of digital assets, is very humbling.
“We are incredibly grateful to the students at West Notts College for their time and expertise in bringing out of use equipment back to life and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with them to help tackle digital poverty.”
The college’s digital trainer assessor Gemma Bhayat said: “Our team of students have worked brilliantly to help the charity to reach this 500 mark and they’re just as keen to keep bringing old equipment up-to-date ready for redistribution.
“They make sure they comply with data protection rules and perform all the relevant maintenance checks and work professionally on this project with the support from the team mentors and computer science students.”
To support #WeMakeICTPossible with a laptop or PC donation please contact the college’s digital trainer assessor Gemma Bhayat on gemma.bhayat@wnc.ac.uk
To discover more about the campaign, please visit Gary Jordan’s Facebook and LinkedIn accounts at
www.facebook.com/gary.jordan2 and www.linkedin.com/in/gary-jordan-non-executive-director/ respectively.
