In Turing we Trust

The last 18 months has been a bit of a rollercoaster, with the pandemic bringing into sharp focus the ability of electronics to bridge gaps and allow us to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.

Thanks to my laptop I have been able to dial in to meetings involving people from all around the world, at a time when international travel isn’t allowed; I have even managed to home school my children during the severest of lockdowns (even if the quality of their “teacher” dropped significantly!). This is something that we can take for granted in the UK, but the availability of IT equipment isn’t universal, and many people around the world are unable to access the transformative power that knowing how to use a computer can bring.

A new partnership

Valpak is thrilled to be working with the Turing Trust, a charitable trust set up in 2009 in honour of the pioneering mathematician, cryptanalyst and father of modern computing, Alan Turing.

The Trust is run by Alan Turing’s family and aims to honour his incredible legacy by providing IT equipment, training and maintenance knowledge to those who need it most, working extensively in sub-Saharan Africa.

To date, the Trust’s work has allowed more than 55,000 students to learn new IT skills, many of whom in Malawi where in 2015 only 3% of students had access to a computer at school.

The global issue of electrical and electronic waste

Globally the UK produces the second most amount of waste electricals each year, averaging 23.9kg per person, a proportion of which will be IT equipment.

Whilst some of this IT equipment will be obsolete in the UK, the Turing Trust is able to thoroughly test and repair items before installing a resource-light educational software package thus giving it a second life. On average, a donated laptop is given an additional 5 years of life by utilising the Turing Trust’s partnership with local social enterprises to help maintain them. At the end of this life the equipment is collected and recycled at an ISO approved facility.

IT skills equals opportunity

You may be asking what benefits IT skills brings and the answer is simple – Opportunity. The Turing Trust’s partner schools have seen 20% more of their students attend university since they started teaching IT, and a recent report suggests those with IT skills can increase their incomes by 39%. Over the coming months and years we are looking forward to helping the Turing Trust continue its invaluable work.