Norway's telco Telenor has partnered with Fair, a Norwegian humanitarian organisation, to give away its used PCs to schools in developing countries.
The deal is said to be the most extensive partnership for transfer of ICT technology from Scandinavia to a developing country. It will see the telecommunications and media provider give away over 2 000 PCs a year to set up labs for more than 100 schools annually.
The agreement will also see several hundred thousand schoolchildren in developing countries gain access to ICT in the next couple of years.
The partnership is already being implemented, with several hundred PCs being used to set up labs in 25 different schools in Eritrea. As the partnership moves forward, new projects will be initiated in other developing countries.
Environment-friendly
Telenor says the partnership ensures the equipment is disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner when it is no longer useful to the recipient countries.
Fair will ensure it is transported back to Norway and delivered to approved disposal plants, notes Fair head Knut Foseide.
Foseide says the high quality of the Telenor equipment enables his organisation to reuse more than 80% of what it receives. As a result, each year Fair will be able to give close to a 100 schools fully equipped PC labs.
"We want to be an enabler for growth and new opportunities by providing good communications solutions," says Telenor executive VP Hilde Tonne.
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