Project Shareware
Reuse program OTX-West gets computers into Oakland schools and student homes.
16 April 2003

"A CAR IS a car. It doesn't matter if you have a Lexus or a Toyota," said Manuel Nieto, gesticulating eagerly in front of the crowd stuffed into a sweaty classroom at Oakland Technical High School one hot, bright Saturday morning in late March. "If you can drive a Toyota, you can drive a Lexus. After all, what's a Lexus? It's just a Toyota with leather seats and a few extras." The 30 assembled Oakland high school students and their parents looked faintly nonplussed. The last thing they'd expected from a three-hour workshop on basic computer skills was a speech about car upholstery. "Well, the same thing goes for computers," Nieto continued, rounding off his analogy. "If you can use Windows 98, you can use XP."

Everybody loves a new toy, and even in the current anemic economy, many computer users think nothing of trading in last year's operating system, flat plasma screen, and ergonomic keyboard for the latest model as fast as Apple can fling it off the production line. But despite the prevalence of this gizmo lust, there are some, like Nieto, who champion the notion that computers can have a life span longer than that of the luna moth.

Nieto, 23, is a trainer with Oakland Technology Exchange-West (OTX-West), a nonprofit organization that refurbishes donated computers and places them in Oakland public schools and student homes. The most up-to-date machines go in the classrooms, while individual high and middle schoolers can take home a working PC after completing a three-hour training session like the one at Oakland Tech. Since becoming a project of local education-funding body Marcus A. Foster Educational Institute two years ago, the organization has distributed some 5,000 computers to schools and, through its Take Home Program, students.

OTX-West was founded by Bruce Buckelew, a 60-year-old IBM systems veteran with a desire to increase the equity of access to technology and keep the 40 to 50 million computers declared obsolete each year out of landfills. In Buckelew's view, workstations are no different from refrigerators, microwave ovens, and other household gadgets. "A computer is an appliance with a 10-year – not a 2-year – life expectancy," he says.
In 1993, after 25 years, Buckelew quit his job and began volunteering at Oakland Tech. Noticing the disparity in scholastic performance between students who had access to computers and those who didn't, he started collecting and fixing old PCs and giving them out. Enlisting the help of students at the school, Buckelew formally established the project (called OTX then) in 1995.

Eight years later, OTX-West is no longer a tiny outfit distributing computers from the basement of Oakland Tech. Now a sprawling enterprise based in a 33,000-square-foot warehouse, the computer-reuse program serves 20 schools (and hopes to expand the project to the entire Oakland Unified School District) and boasts numerous partners – from the companies that supply the computers to organizations like Urban VOICE, a local technical job-training program that provides volunteers, and the Urban Dreams Project, a cofunder of OTX-West's Take Home Program. Later this year OTX-West moves into even bigger premises, and the project is also developing new schemes, including a home-computer program for math and science teachers and the extension of its mandate to elementary schools.

OTX-West isn't alone in the computer-reuse field, which dates back two decades but has come of age only in the past few years, according to Jim Lynch, senior program manager for computer recycling and reuse at Compumentor, a nonprofit that specializes in providing technology assistance to community organizations and schools. Lynch says there are currently between 500 and 600 nonprofit organizations in the United States supplying computers to schools and other parts of the community, such as rehabilitation programs and senior homes. Nonprofits such as Computers for Schools and Computers for Youth, like OTX-West, supply computers to classrooms or student homes.

But while some of these more established organizations have over time developed significant infrastructures, many computer-reuse efforts are bare-bones operations, run out of garages by hobbyists. "Computer reuse happens at the grassroots level because there is no government support for this kind of thing in America," Lynch says, adding that in Canada, where the government funds reuse projects, refurbished computers constitute a quarter of all computers in schools. "As a result, Canada is rapidly closing the digital divide," Lynch says. "They're way ahead of us."

However, OTX-West has gained a strong foothold. Refurbished computers constitute a crucial component of the financially beleaguered OUSD's current technology offerings. According to a recent California Department of Education survey, of the 10,000-plus instructional computers now being used in Oakland schools, roughly one-third – all of them supplied by OTX-West – are more than four years old. "Having an organization like OTX-West allows us to provide our students with much broader access to technology than we otherwise would be able to," says Peter Hutcher, director of technical services for the OUSD.

The project has become something of a blueprint for other large-scale refurbishing programs. It recently won a grant to produce a guidebook and video to help community technology centers nationwide develop home-based reuse programs. (CTCs are organizations that offer technology services to their community, from libraries that provide public computer terminals to more elaborate enterprises like OTX-West.) OTX-West has been featured on CNN, the Discovery Channel, and Channel 4 and 5 news in San Francisco, and in 2002, Buckelew received the Thomas Jefferson Award for outstanding community service.

"OTX-West is considered to be a model amongst computer-reuse programs," says Kavita Singh, executive director of Community Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet), a national organization of more than 1,000 CTCs.

• • •

On first inspection it's difficult to see how Buckelew does it. The scruffy, salmon pink exterior of OTX-West's Oakland waterfront district headquarters doesn't give anything away. Windowless, cavernous, and – depending on how close you stand to the rest rooms – not exactly odorless, the interior is even less appealing. What's most daunting is the sheer volume of stuff precariously piled into every dusty corner. If the mountains of inert monitors and forlorn-looking CPUs could be transformed into grain, there'd be enough food to keep a famine-stricken nation going for months.

The organizational process is similarly mind-boggling. As assorted volunteers, parents, trainers, and hangers-on wander in and out of the building throughout the day and well into the evening, Buckelew's attention is constantly being yanked in 19 directions. There are CPUs to repair, monitors to pick up, agreements to negotiate, mothers to placate, volunteers to manage, and journalists to speak to. Yet despite the hubbub, Buckelew and his staff remain mysteriously calm.

Budgetwise, the creaky silicon ship manages to stay afloat because Buckelew has a knack for getting people to give him things for free or at low cost. The boss arrives at the office every day wearing what he calls his "let's not spend any money cap." Obviously the cap fits – even OTX-West's building is a donation, from Oakland-based Jordan Real Estate Investments. And Buckelew was a driving force behind the campaign to persuade Microsoft to modify its draconian licensing fees and policies, making it possible for nonprofit computer refurbishers to distribute PCs running Windows legally.

The project currently receives free hardware from many sources, including federal agencies and companies such as PeopleSoft and Charles Schwab. And refurbished computers are loaded with free software found online. But to most efficiently serve the largest number of people, OTX-West has to use the most ubiquitous software and hardware possible. Which is why the cooperation of Microsoft – love it or hate it – has been important to Buckelew and the computer-reuse movement as a whole. As a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher, OTX-West obtains licenses to the Microsoft 98 operating system for $5 a computer (this covers the handling fee for Compumentor, which distributes the licenses to OTX-West – and dozens of other MARs nationwide – on behalf of Microsoft).

Beyond machine power, OTX-West owes its success to the willingness of people in the community to donate their time and expertise. Aside from two full-time staff, everyone works for free or, like the program's two Americorps fellows, is compensated through external sources. Urban VOICE provides an ongoing team of tech-savvy volunteers to test and repair the computers as part of their training. Urban Dreams helps pay instructors like Nieto.

The project also relies on volunteers to clean computers and help on distribution and training days. Some are self-proclaimed geeks whose mission in life, it seems, is to gather and fix up defunct printers for the benefit of Oakland school kids. Others are corporate employees out on "team-building" days that revolve around spritzing yellowing monitors with cleaning fluid. All in all, a broad spectrum of the Oakland community has traipsed through OTX-West's doors. "The whole point of this project is to help the community help itself," says Buckelew, who also donates his time.

By far, though, the most common volunteers to be seen hanging around OTX-West's premises are Oakland students. On a recent distribution day, as a long line of middle schoolers waited to receive their home computers, small groups of teens sat around tables, cleaning computer parts and chatting. Some hauled CPUs and monitors, keeping the production line going. Others helped project coordinator Jonathan Geeter and Americorps fellows Sean Freese and Omar Kahn give out equipment and sell low-cost Internet accounts. (OTX-West has an arrangement with local ISP California.com to provide unlimited Internet access to OTX-West families for $7 a month.)

There are major incentives to volunteering at OTX-West. Students can notch up community-service credits to fulfill high school graduation requirements, and as volunteer Daniel Bowen, 15, puts it, "volunteering is good for college records." Volunteering is also a good way to get more gear. The system students receive through the Take Home Program is pretty basic: an Internet-capable CPU, a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. High schoolers get the Windows 98 operating system, middle schoolers the more or less obsolete but apparently adequate New Deal system, and the computers are loaded with word-processing, typing, spreadsheet, and other applications.

But for students who want something a bit flashier, Buckelew has developed a system of "service bucks" wherein students exchange volunteer hours for anything from printers to extra memory. "There's an hour price on almost everything," he says. "To get a CD-ROM, you need to put in two volunteer hours; for a 17-inch monitor, it's four hours." Because Buckelew's focus is on getting computers into homes and schools fast, the requirements for service and training, while an integral part of OTX-West's business model, are kept low. "Training should be a gate to acquiring a computer, not a roadblock," he says.

• • •

Despite OTX-West's growing successes, there are still problems to solve. For one, the organization needs to find a way to control inventory, as it receives more equipment than it can handle. Educating the schools and the community about computer reuse is another issue. "We need to help people understand that you don't need a new computer to do most things," says Kate Dowling, executive director of the Marcus A. Foster Educational Institute. The dire financial state of Oakland's schools has also created something of a paradox for OTX-West. As the schools struggle to stay afloat, they are becoming increasingly dependent on reused computers. Yet the lack of funds puts so much stress on teachers and the administration that finding time to capitalize on resources like OTX-West becomes another challenge. "Oakland schools tend to go from crisis to crisis without being proactive," OUSD technical services director Hutcher says. "They don't know how to take advantage of opportunities."

Still, some students are getting as much out of the program as they can. As the last families pile computers into the backs of their cars and trundle off into the blazing weekend sunshine, Buckelew and his team round off another chaotic distribution day by handing out service dollars to the volunteer students. More than 100 computers have been collected in the space of two exhausting hours. Several kids weigh the pros and cons of putting in an extra hour's service for a color inkjet printer. Others finish up their shifts knowing they're several hours closer to fulfilling their community-service requirement. But whether the volunteers are hoping to go home with computer equipment or academic credit, it's Buckelew's mission to keep them coming back to volunteer at OTX-West, even after they've graduated from high school and taken advantage of all of the computer upgrades they can. "We're trying to get the kids hooked," Buckelew says. "We make them see that the more they work, the more they get, and when they've gotten everything they can, we hope they'll give more."

© Copyright The San Francisco Bay Guardian 2003.

Follow this link to download the training manual I wrote on computer reuse for The Marcus Foster Educational Institute, based on OTX-West's computer reuse program.

http://www.mafei.org/OurPrograms/OTX.asp