What's Up with Tech?
Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!
With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Telecom/5G and more!
What's Up with Tech?
Bridging the Digital Divide: Computers for People's E-Waste Solutions, Lifelong Impact, and Future Plans
Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com
Ever wondered how you can turn an old computer into a life-changing opportunity for someone in need? We sit down with Dylan, the brilliant mind behind Computers for People, to uncover his incredible journey from a high school student refurbishing old PCs to leading a groundbreaking nonprofit tackling the e-waste crisis. Dylan talks about the hurdles he faced, from legal challenges to ensuring data security, and explains the meticulous process his organization follows to refurbish and distribute quality computers to underserved communities. Through Dylan’s inspiring story, you'll gain insights into how this initiative not only addresses e-waste but also bridges the technology gap for those who need it most.
In the second half, Dylan shares a poignant story about delivering a gaming computer to a struggling student, showcasing the profound impact that even a single device can have on a life. We also discuss the ever-evolving landscape of technology and the importance of teaching digital skills to prevent a widening digital divide. With an eye on the future, Dylan reveals ambitious plans for global expansion and introduces the Pepper Eating Competition, a unique fundraising event designed to spice things up while supporting their mission. Tune in to discover how you can help bridge the technology gap and support this transformative initiative.
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel
Hey everyone, Fascinating topic today with a wonderful organization, really on a mission, nonprofit, doing amazing work for good computers for people. Dylan, how are you.
Speaker 2:I'm doing great Evan. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for being here. It was good to meet you the other week and I was really fascinated by your origin, story and vision. Maybe tell us about the creation of this initiative Computers for People and what's the big idea?
Speaker 2:Definitely so. I started five and a half years ago when I was a sophomore in high school in New York City. I originally used to go to different thrift stores around Brooklyn, new York. Me and my friends would go bring our skateboards. We would buy and negotiate for old computers and technology which we knew we could resell online. We would stack them up on our skateboards, take them back on the subway where we would fix them up and then eventually sell them online and make a good profit.
Speaker 2:But through this business I realized that, wow, there's such a big opportunity for people that don't know how to get rid of their old e-waste. It would end up at these thrift stores. It would end up in the landfill. Tons of companies didn't know how to get rid of it. I later learned that 88% of all e-waste ends up in the landfill here in the United States, which just shocked me right. Like think of, just look at the desk, your desk, and see like all this technology, just thinking about it, think about it getting burned in a landfill. It's terrible.
Speaker 2:So from there I was like okay, I can collect all this e-waste, refurbish it and you know what would be next. Should I sell it? Should I create a business out of this. And I was talking to my stepmom, who worked at a nonprofit, and she told me how dozens of her clients don't have access to computers but really needed it for jobs, education, health care, federal benefits, all these things that you couldn't access if you didn't have access to technology. And then that was the light bulb moment. I was like, okay, I got to collect these computers, refurbish them and donate them to people in need, and that's where it all started. And the next day I bought the domain names for Computers for People and filed the 501 C3 status and learned how to do that through YouTube and the IRS website. And the rest is history. Now we're six years later.
Speaker 1:Six years later. So you're still in college, I think, Still on a mission up here in Massachusetts about amazing vision and incredible concept, but challenges that you faced in not just collecting but refurbishing the tech and that whole sort of supply chain. How did you overcome a lot of those challenges and to kind of scale up to where you are today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's definitely a lot of challenges along the way, especially, I mean, starting at 15, I couldn't even sign the papers to open a bank account. So those were the first challenges I needed to. You know, luckily my dad was very supportive of this endeavor and helped me sign the documents I needed to open a bank account for the first time bank account for the first time. But then from there we learned a lot about. I learned a lot about about actually refurbishing and collecting the computers. Right, you need to. You need large vehicles to pick up hundreds of devices at a time. You need to know how to get certificates of insurance to enter some of these large office buildings that require vendors to have insurance, which is something that I didn't know about and I had to figure out. And now we have pretty good insurance so that we can do that all over the city and around. You know the Northeast.
Speaker 2:From there, data security is one of like the biggest questions. The most frequently asked question I get is like is my data going to be secured if I donate my computers to you? How are you wiping it? And we've become professionals in this space in terms of using a NIST 888 purge wipe on all the data to make sure it does a three pass wipe, no data is recoverable and we get a certificate of insurance data erasure to give to the donors. So those were a lot of the challenges that we faced along the way, but we've figured it out and we've figured out how to automate it a lot so that we can do this at scale, like right now we're just in the Northeast, but my vision is to be global, a global organization, so we need to automate our systems and our technology in order to get there we need to automate our systems and our technology in order to get there.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic road you're on. And how do you ensure the quality of the devices that you distribute? I have lots of semi-broken computers which I need to talk to you about after the show, but what's your process there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. A lot of people ask like well, do you only accept computers that are certain like age or certain specs? And the answer is we collect all you waste all the way up to apply. Like we don't accept appliances, if you have a toaster oven, that's a. That's something that you got to figure out on your own, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:I can give you some resources but we can't recycle those. But everything else we take and we sort it into donatable and non-donatable, and all the non-donatable equipment we partner with IT asset disposal companies and recyclers to properly break apart those parts into the metals, the plastics, everything else which gets turned and recycled into new products in the future, everything else that is donatable, that we deem donatable. We have, like a certain spec that we deem as like okay, this can support Windows 10 and someone can use this for three years going forward, and that is always changing. I mean, evan, you know that technology is always evolving and moving forward, so our specs are always going up every year on what we deem as donatable and those devices get refurbished and then donated to people in need.
Speaker 1:Wonderful and walk us through the process of sort of identifying individuals or organizations. Or what have you in need of computers? How do you ensure the tech gets into the hands of individuals who need it most?
Speaker 2:people in need that need computers, right, I mean a lot of people ask like yeah, how does anyone? Can anyone just apply and get a free device? Yes and no, you need to meet certain income requirements and be part be have a nominator from a nonprofit. So we partner with over 300 nonprofit organizations across New Jersey, new York City and Massachusetts that nominate individuals in need, whether they're students, formerly incarcerated, senior citizens, refugees, veterans. They apply for a computer, get nominated by the organization as in need of this device and then, once it's approved, then we drop off the computer to the nonprofit.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. So you were pretty busy during the pandemic, where you know there was a lot more laptops and PCs needed to work from home, study from home. Talk about that experience. That must have been quite a whirlwind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely. I'd say it's a boom. It was a boom in publicity around the subject, not as much like the publicity went higher than the boom in need. I would say the need was always there. We started before the pandemic and still millions of people across the United States didn't have access to technology but still needed it Like, how would you go on Google Classroom and complete homework if you didn't have access to computers?
Speaker 2:Google Classroom was around way before the pandemic, and pandemic just showed, hey, everyone actually does need a computer and this is a pressing issue that we need to solve now. And the pandemic didn't even solve the problem, it just shed a lot of light on it, which you know good and bad, but it definitely showed that this is a real problem and it's great because I think the government and the private sector put a lot more money and attention towards these sort of initiatives. You know, more companies are donating their computers, more companies are donating their time and their funds to allow us to do this work and close the divide. But yes, it was really an interesting time that, like, we started a year before the pandemic and then that happened and then it was just suddenly. You know, oh, that makes sense, that makes total sense.
Speaker 1:Well done. And so how does it work when you partner with businesses or schools or other nonprofits, local governments to you know, to source computers? I mean, what can folks listening and do to support your mission?
Speaker 2:Definitely. I think one of the first steps is if you work in any type of company like we've worked with government, we've worked with nonprofits, companies of all sizes, from one person to literally like hundreds of thousands of people some of these companies one person to literally like hundreds of thousands of people some of these companies and the first step is just to ask your IT director hey, what do we do with my old laptop that I get from work? And most often they will tell you two things Either we have someone that we give it to or I have no idea. And that's when you say, hey, I know of this nonprofit Computers for People. Maybe we can consider donating our old tech to Computers for People. They pick up for free, you get a tax write off for the donation and the computers go to people in need. So it's all benefits, all value for the company, all value for us and all value for the people that we're supporting through our work. So, yeah, please just reach out to us through computersforpeopleorg. It's that simple.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, so you must have come across all kinds of interesting people helping, helping them with sourcing computers. You must have lots of stories and anecdotes where you've really made a difference, right down to the individual level. Care to share any stories that really made an impact, without picking one over the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's been so many amazing stories and as the organization has grown, there's just more and more stories coming in. But I remember, like back to the beginning, when, like I started it, I got to deliver every computer to every person. And there's one story that really hits me that I, like always will remember. We had a desktop computer. A student said he was into gaming and we decked out like a gaming computer for him. We don't do this usually, but he said he was really into gaming and the family was really struggling with many different issues that I'm not going to go into.
Speaker 2:But we got this computer ready, we delivered it to the kid. He was jumping up and down so excited, and and then we were going to leave. We took a photo of the donation and we were going to leave and the mom came up to us, knocked on the window. We rolled down the window and she was crying and she said, hey, I'd never would have been able to provide this for my son. So thank you. And that, like I will always remember that moment um of how much just one device can make a difference, and not just like one student's life, but a family, a household and, I hope like that student's going to go on to do great things in the world. And there's just that times 3,000. We've donated 3,000 computers so far.
Speaker 1:So yeah, wonderful, and you know tech is evolving so rapidly. It's not just about computers anymore, I mean, there's value in tablets and smartphones and, increasingly, wearables for health and wellness, all kinds of devices. How do you think about staying on top of all of this tech that's coming out?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's. It's a interesting time to be in this industry, um, be in, like the recycling of computers, because, like we're almost three years behind, I would say what what the world is is buying. Um, because most people like refresh their computers every three years, so we get to see, like what it looked like three years ago. Um, but we need to just we need to stay on top of it, because in 10 years, desktops might not be a thing at all.
Speaker 2:I don't know what laptops are going to look like. You're right, it might be all wearables and phones and we're going to have to adapt and make sure that people have access to that technology. We're already already focusing on the skills component of computers a lot. We teach two in person digital skills classes per day, so not just like, hey, here's a computer, figure out how to use it. We go and actually show them how to use it and teach them, like, how to turn on the computer to, you know, using Google Sheets, creating an email, eventually making a resume, all those great skills that you need. And we're working on curriculum right now to teach people how to use AI as well and how to apply that to their life in order.
Speaker 2:you know, if you don't know how to make a resume, ai can definitely help you in creating that resume and I think that'll be helpful to a lot of the people that we're serving to make sure that AI does not make the digital divide larger than it already is.
Speaker 1:A great point. And so what's next for you, this year, the rest of the year, next year, what are your plans in terms of expansion and you know how can people get involved in the mission as a volunteer?
Speaker 2:Definitely. Yeah, we're planning some big things. One thing totally it's not totally off topic, but somewhat off topic is we're having an event in October, october 5th, called the Pepper Eating Competition. It's Hoboken Pepper Fest, so it's a 20 round competition where we have about 30 contestants that eat spicy peppers one after another and they get hotter each round. So it starts at the jalapeno pepper all the way to the Carolina Reaper and you can't drink any water or milk, so you have to eat the whole pepper and as the rounds go by, people drop out because they start crying. They're not feeling great and you don't have to compete in the competition. You can also come and watch the competition and it's all a fundraiser for Computers for People. So if you're interested in that event, it's computersforpeopleorg slash Pepper and it's going to be very, very interesting. This is the second annual Pepper Fest. Last year they made it to round 13. And then the finalist made it out alive with a $500 prize.
Speaker 1:So fun, kind of like the ice challenge, icebox challenge. You got to get attention these days and sounds like a few viral moments there waiting to happen. Well, wonderful work. Congratulations on the amazing progress and the good work you're doing. You're in the Boston area and anyone from New England can donate through the tri-state area, is that correct?
Speaker 2:Definitely yeah, so we just opened an office here in Waltham Massachusetts, but anyone in the New Jersey, new York City or Massachusetts area can submit to donate and we'll pick up.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, everyone get on that. I will be donating myself and look forward to helping out as much as I can. Thanks so much, dylan, great work.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Evan.
Speaker 1:Take care everyone.