Donated PCs become African multimedia centres

(Photo credit: Glenn Edwards)

Despite its waste-not-want-not approach to computers that are no longer seen as cutting-edge, CFSK has very stringent quality standards that dictate what it will and won't take from organisations such as Computer Aid, which sources the PCs from UK businesses. Computer Aid has its own strict standards which rule out any PC below a Pentium III, or any machine that is not mostly functional, but CFSK carries out its own vetting procedures, as not all the machines it receives are up to these standards.

The organisation has recently closed relationships with two suppliers of PCs in the West whose machines weren't up to scratch. The other issue that dogs the area of computer reuse is that businesses in developed countries are worried about data left on donated machines ending up in the wrong hands overseas. But CFSK wipes all the machines that it receives using the latest eradication tools, even those PCs supplied by Computer Aid, which uses UK government-authorised wiping software.