Long before Inclusive Bytes had a name, the mission was already taking shape. During the 2020 lockdown, our founder Andy Powell launched an appeal in Oldham to tackle a problem that had suddenly become urgent: children unable to take part in remote learning because there was no computer at home.
The scale was stark around 9% of UK children (well over a million) had no laptop, desktop or tablet to learn on, and hundreds of thousands were relying on a mobile connection alone. So the plan was simple: collect unwanted laptops from the community, securely wipe and recondition them, and pass them on to the schoolchildren who needed them most.
As Andy told the Oldham Chronicle at the time, the idea was to “get them into the hands of people who can make use of them.”
That same belief that access to technology shouldn’t depend on where you’re born or what your family can afford is exactly what Inclusive Bytes exists to carry forward today.
Read the original article in the Oldham Chronicle →