"TRANSITION FROM LEARNING TO EARNING:

GETTING STUDENTS TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE"

WEBINAR

~ JULY 12, 2011 ~

LIZ PERSAUD: Hello everyone and welcome. This is

Liz with the Pass It On Center. I'm just looking at my

clock, and I've got that time at 2 o'clock eastern. So

we're going to go ahead and get started.

Hopefully all of you can hear me. We've done a

couple of mic checks just a few minutes ago. So any time

you want to type into the public-chat area and let us know

if you can hear me or not, that would be wonderful. We

definitely appreciate that feedback.

So again, welcome. I'm so glad that you are

joining us today for this great webinar. It looks like

we've got a couple people signing on as we are just about

beginning, and we are really happy just to have all of you

on today.

As we always say, we know that time is very

valuable and very precious. And we definitely appreciate

you taking time out of your day to join us for this webinar

today.

We're very excited about this webinar. It's titled

"From Learning to Earning: Using Refurbished Computers to

Move Students Across the Digital Divide."

So we've got some great speakers today. I'm really

excited about bringing this wonderful information to you as

you are learning more about AT reuse, expanding and

building upon your AT reuse program.

So hopefully all of you can see the PowerPoint that

is up on the screen now. I'll be flipping through as each

of our speakers are joining us today and talking about each

of their specific parts.

If at any time you cannot see the PowerPoint, what

you can do is, over on the left-hand side at the top,

there's a little refresh button. It looks like two green

arrows that are circling each other.

Feel free to click that button and refresh. That

tends to do the trick to get the PowerPoint back up. And I

can also do that throughout the presentation to make sure

it's still up.

So if you guys can give me some feedback and let me

know if you can see the PowerPoint, I would definitely

appreciate that.

I wanted to let you know a few things about the

webinar and about interacting with us before we actually

jump into the content of today's webinar.

If you have a headset and microphone and you are

wanting to talk to us throughout the webinar, whether to

ask questions or leave any comments or just interact with

us via your voice and your headset and microphone, the way

that you would do that is you would hold down the "Control"

key on your keyboard, and as you're holding down the

"Control" key, you'll be speaking.

When you're finished speaking, we'd ask that you

release the "Control" key, because what that does is allow

myself and our other speakers and anyone else who wants to

ask a question or have any comments for us to speak as

well.

So again, you just hold down the "Control" key, and

you can release the "Control" key when you're finished

speaking.

If you are wanting to chat with us via the

public-chat area, you can see over to the right-hand side

that we had a couple people just giving some feedback with

sound checks and just saying hello and welcome as we're

here in this room.

You can type into that white box under "Public

Chat," and it pops into the public-chat area. So if I can

get some of you guys to type in the public-chat area,

that's really helpful. And I'll actually say hello. And

that will give some of the -- that will give the feedback

and the topics and question and comments that you want to

share with everyone.

Okay. Thanks everyone for saying hello. I was

kind of worried there for a second. I wasn't seeing

everyone say hello. So I appreciate you guys typing in

there.

Wanted to let you know that Kimberly Griffin is our

transcriptionist. She is also on this webinar today. She

is recording this webinar.

We offer all of our webinars via archive three to

four weeks posted on our webinar after today's date. So if

you give us just a few weeks, we'll get this recording up.

We'll also get the transcription up as well as a copy of

the PowerPoint. And you can get that on the Pass It On

Center website.

And just let me know if you can see the PowerPoint.

Hopefully you guys are able now to see the credits

information.

And this slide says that we offer credits. We

offer CEUs and CRCs. So if you -- thank you, Charlotte,

for giving me that feedback.

If you're interested in CEUs, we get our CEUs

through the AAC Institute. What you'll do is visit the AAC

Institute and follow their directions to receive your CEU

certification.

I just wanted to let you know, and I've gotten some

e-mails behind the scenes, that some of you have been

asking when the AAC Institute will be posting our webinars

for you to get your certification.

Just be patient. I spoke with them just a few days

ago, and they're working on getting that information up

there. So just keep checking back. And if you have any

troubles, you can let me know.

We are also offering CRCs for this webinar as well.

If you're interested in receiving your CRC verification

form, feel free to send me an e-mail with your name,

organization, e-mail address, and all of that information.

And my e-mail address is liz@passitoncenter.org.

So if you haven't sent me your information, please go ahead

and e-mail that to me. And I'll get that verification form

out to you in the next few days.

We also ask that you work with us, that you help us

to get some information about our webinars so we can offer

more webinars to you and we can also offer credits.

We have a SurveyMonkey evaluation that we put up at

the end of the webinar. And here's the web address here.

We'll also show it again when we're finished with the

webinar.

But at the end of this webinar, we really ask that

you please go on and evaluate us. Give us your feedback.

Ask us questions. Let us know how you felt about our

presentation, about the topics, and any other topics that

you would like to hear us talk about.

We listen to you. Our webinar list is built by the

requests that you guys have given us. So if there's

something that you're interested in and we haven't

presented on it yet, please give us that information, and

we'll get it up there and get going with that.

So if there are not any questions about the access

of the webinar, we'll go ahead and jump into it.

We have some learning objectives for this webinar.

And what we're going to be talking about today is examining

a program for providing refurbished computers to students.

Joy Kniskern is on with us today. She is the

principal investigator of the Pass It On Center and also

does wonderful work with the High School/High Tech program,

laptop program here in Georgia. So she'll be talking to

you all about some of the great work that High School/High

Tech is doing.

The second learning objective is to understand

indicators of quality for computer refurbishing. Lindsey

Bean-Kampwerth with Paraquad is also a consultant with the

Pass It On Center. She is on this webinar today, and

she'll be talking to all of you about the indicators of

quality and what that means and how all of you can utilize

that as you're working on building a computer-refurbishing

program or enhancing what you've got going on now. And

Lindsey is our lead for that with the Pass It On Center.

And then we're really happy to say that we've got

Bob Rust and Joanne Willis with Touch the Future and the

ReBoot program here in Georgia with us. They're going to

be talking about ReBoot, about the computer-refurbishing

program that they've got going on, and their business model

and just sharing some of that information with you.

And again, these are our speakers today. We've got

Joy with the Pass It On Center. Bob Rust and Joanne Willis

will be contributing as well, too, with ReBoot/Touch the

Future. And as I said, Lindsey Bean-Kampwerth.

I also want to give a shout out to Trish Redmon,

who is one of our consultants with the Pass It On Center.

She worked with us very closely to get all this information

and compile this presentation together. And Trish is on

with us today too. So thank you, Trish.

And I also see that Caroline Van Howe with ATIA has

joined us. Caroline, thank you so much for being on the

webinar today.

Pass It On Center will be at ATIA in Chicago and

ATIA in Orlando. So we just want to let all of you know

that we'll have a booth. We have an AT reuse strand, and

we've got some activities lined up for our presence at

ATIA.

Caroline, is there anything that you want to say

about ATIA before I pass it on to Joy to talk about the

webinar today?

Okay. Well, with that being said, I'm going to

pass the mic to Joy, who's going to talk to you about the

Georgia High School/High Tech program.

JOY KNISKERN: Thank you, Liz. I really appreciate

your comments.

And welcome everybody. I know that we have people

joining us from across the country today. And if you're

anywhere close to us, I know that the heat index today here

in Georgia in Atlanta is up to 105 degrees. So we hope

that this webinar will be of interest to you. And we're

just going to move right ahead.

With the Georgia High School/High Tech program, we

started this program with the Georgia Department of Labor,

Vocational Rehabilitation Program back in the mid-'90s.

And essentially it's a program that provides

opportunities for students in grades 8 through 12 with all

kinds of disabilities to explore careers in science, math,

and technology.

And when we say that, don't just think computer

programming or software engineering. We have students who

are involved in everything from cosmetology [lost audio] --

Can you hear me now? I know we did sound checks

before. Can you hear me okay? All right. I'll speak up a

little bit. I've got the mic right in front, and hopefully

this will work.

High School/High Tech started in the mid-'90s.

It's an initiative of the Georgia Department of Labor and

the Vocational Rehabilitation Program. And we were one of

many programs across the country in the mid-'90s that

really started these initiatives to help students

transition from high school into post-secondary education

and to college and to employment and also into the VR

programs.

It is a program that provides opportunities for

students in grades 8 through 12 to really look at careers

in science, math, and technology.

But when I say science, math, and technology, don't

just think software engineer or systems engineer or

something of that nature. We have students in the program

who are interested in pursuing careers in everything from

cosmetology to engineering to law. And it's much broader

than the name would just give that impression.

And it's based on community involvement. True

partnerships among the families, the teachers in the high

schools, teachers at colleges, Georgia Department of Labor

and the VR Program, various advocacy groups, private

nonprofits, business leaders, and employers.

Okay. You can advance the slide.

All right. And I'm glad that everybody can hear

me. And we're going to move on to the next slide.

High School/High Tech is based on evidence-based

research, meaning that we have clear indicators as to what

happens when we provide this halo of attention to students

in secondary schools who are at risk of dropping out.

And if you Google "Guideposts For Success" -- and

the website for that is www.ncdwd-youth.info\guideposts,

and then you can just Google "America's Promise Alliance."

You will see that there's a lot of really good

information on both of those websites about research and

evidence-based practice showing that giving students who

are at risk in high schools the opportunities where they

can explore the world to work and do career exploration, do

work-based learning, school-based experiences, connecting

activities such as field trips and trips to post-secondary

schools.

These kinds of things are really what helps

students stay in school. And I know that the data on

drop-out rates for students with disabilities is about I

think twice that of students without disabilities.

And so this is our future, and it's important for

all of us to invest in these programs.

All right. Let's next go on to the next slide.

And in our program here in Georgia we just did our

third-quarter report. We have a secured online data

system. And I'm happy to say that the majority of the

schools that we're working with, which we've got about 20

counties and many schools in those counties, are using this

system so that we can really measure outcomes.

And now we have approximately 500 students who are

actively enrolled in the program. And of those, about 376

are, in fact, VR clients.

And I saw that there was a note there of my sound

going in and out. Thanks for that feedback. And just let

me know if it works better for you.

The primary referral agent are high school

teachers. And those are the ones who really pinpoint these

students and refer them into High School/High Tech.

We do have 157 counties in Georgia. And so you can

imagine this is not something that is universally available

across the state. We've been expanding the program every

year very steadily. And we're going to probably have about

at least a dozen more schools who will be coming on in the

fall, and we're very, very excited about that.

Okay. We can move on to the next slide.

One of the things that our High School/High Tech

coordinator in early 2003, about that time frame, came up

with a concept of why not provide students on a competitive

basis with laptops so that they would be able to do their

homework, have an opportunity to research colleges and

post-secondary schools, do a number of things that they

really didn't have that opportunity to do.

And so that was a program, the refurbished laptop

program, that was born out of need of students who really

didn't have access to laptops. And we'll get that slide up

in just a minute here.

But with this particular program, we did a survey

of a lot of the students just to find out -- and the

teachers -- what are the barriers that a laptop would

overcome?

And for many of them they stated that they really

had significant transportation barriers so that, after

school, they didn't have a way to get to a library. And

many of them are coming from homes that have a lower

income, so they didn't have an opportunity to have a

personal computer at home.

And they also mentioned that it would assist with

transition to post-secondary education or work. It would

give them an opportunity to research programs, research

scholarships, really find out the different kind of jobs

out there and so on.

We also realized that, by having a laptop at home,

they'd have a greater opportunity to bridge and use

assistive technology that they might not otherwise have at

home.

And I think this slide is slowly coming up, but I'm

just running through these materials anyway. So thanks for

your patience.

They also talked about the opportunity to use the

computers and the laptops to do research products, to

finish their senior high school project and exam, and to

get assignments and submit assignments.

If anybody's participated in post-secondary

education online, you know that, if you don't have a

personal computer, you don't know how to use it, and

especially if you layer on the need to use assistive

technology, then these are things you really need to be

starting when you're in high school, if you're going to

need these tools, so that you can carry them on.

And so these were all of the things that the

students mentioned. They also said that they needed a way

to really study for the high school graduation exam.

We could advance to the next slide.

They also wanted to have an opportunity to do

online applications for college; access tutorials; apply

for college scholarships; and to complete online

assessments for careers and interests; do interest

inventories to sort of pinpoint, well, you know, what kind

of career do I want to pursue; and to also do job searches

and to apply for summer jobs and online job applications.

All of these kinds of things they used.

And we're going to advance to the slide now that

says "Why Do Computers Matter?"

So how many of you -- while we're waiting for the

next slide to pull up, and it will be the one beyond

this -- if any of you have High School/High Tech programs

or something like that in your state, please feel free to

make comments in the chat area. We welcome interaction.

It really helps a lot to learn about what you're doing and

what interests you have and maybe launching a program like

this.

Why do computers matter? The digital divide refers

to the gap between those who have access to technology and

those who don't. So computer usage and access has a major

impact on employment and income, as we were just saying.

And we're going to look at a couple of slides now

that really show you some of the data that correlates

computer usage for on-the-job work.

If you're a student -- if you're on the job and

you've got a bachelor's degree, secondary education, or a

doctoral degree, your chances of using a computer on the

job or needing to use a computer on the job is like

80 percent or more. So having that early on is very, very

helpful.

And this will come up in just a minute. The

percentage of people who use computers, and that increases

by educational level.

And if you're a person who hasn't graduated from

high school, then I think the percentage is less than

20 percent. You're probably not going to have as great a

need to use the computer as those with advanced degrees.

Can everybody see the PowerPoint? I can see the

title. I cannot see the graph. But I basically described

that graph.

So if you -- there you go. So if you have a

doctorate or a professional degree, you're at about maybe

83 percent; master's degree, for some reason, a little bit

higher; and then on down to some college, then you're going

to be using a computer probably 58 percent of the time; and

then on down to a high school dropout, it's less than

20 percent.

And then we can advance to the next slide. And

that's going to show you basically computer usage on the

job and income levels.

And I think all of us do know that the more you use

a computer and the people in higher income jobs are more

likely to use computers in their work. The usage levels

really increase with income levels.

And you can see that, if you're one of those

individuals that is earning a little bit under $75,000 or

more, you've got a 75 percent chance of using a computer on

the job. And if you are not using a computer, which

suggests that you have not as much education, perhaps a

high school drop-out, it's going to be less than $20,000 a

year. So there's some very strong drivers for this kind of

program.

And so we'll advance to the next slide.

One of the things that we ask for these students to

do is, when they do a competition for the laptops -- and

we're going to be talking about that in just a minute -- is

they write thank you notes to let us know how they're using

these laptops.

And if they want to participate in the program,

they must be either rising juniors or seniors at a school

where we have a High School/High Tech program. That means

that they would have physical, sensory, or learning

disabilities and that they're an active participant in the

High School/High Tech program.

There is a competitive application process. And I

think a couple of us on the webinar today have had an

opportunity to participate on the panels where we're

actually reviewing their application materials.

They must submit an essay or a PowerPoint

presentation where that really talks about their goals and

how they want to use the laptop. They also indicate

whether or not they have certain functional issues. Like

do they have trouble reading? Do they have trouble

writing? Spelling?

That can be a flag for us, even if they don't know

assistive technology or that terminology, that we need to

look at that for incorporation of assistive technology on

the laptop.

They have to indicate demonstrated leadership. One

of the neat things about this is just some of the comments

that the students share.

I'll never forget the time I was working on one of

the applications, and one of the students said, "My

leadership activity is that I get my little brother up

every morning and get him dressed for school so that he can

get to his bus on time. And this is after my mother has

had to go to work already."

And we constantly hear stories like that where

leadership, when you think about that, you automatically

think of maybe student council president or pep club chair

or something of that nature.

And we get all kinds of comments from students who

write in about how they demonstrated personal

responsibility and leadership in their lives.

The parents give recommendations. The teacher

gives recommendations. And of course the student is his

own best advocate.

And from that we make selections about students we

feel are ready to really use the laptop, and the awards are

made that way.

Okay. Let's advance to the next slide.

I wanted to talk a little bit about how this

program is funded. The primary funder of the program has

been the Georgia VR Program.

And I'm happy to say that our leadership from the

very top has really embraced this program. All of the

regional directors across the state are working very

actively to establish High School/High Tech programs even

if they're in the very beginning stages of this.

And so we've been very busy working with our

statewide program coordinator to get the word out and to

help launch new sites.

I think I missed a slide here.

And there is a refurbished computer committee that

has been in existence from the very inception of the

program.

And it's comprised of teachers; vocational

rehabilitation folks; people from the VR Assistive Work

Technology Program; Tech-Able, which is a Tools For Life

Assistive Technology Resource Center supported through the

AT Act funds; and also site coordinators from several of

the High School/High Tech programs participate in that

selection committee.

And the committee meets about four times a year.

And we try to do meetings where we can get batches of

applications in so the students have access to what they're

awarded throughout the school year as much as possible.

So we can advance to the next slide. And I believe

the next slide may deal with how the program is indeed

funded.

One of the things that we always stress throughout

all of our webinars is, if you're working in programs like

this, whether it's an AT reuse program or a VR-based

program, we need to be creative, in this time of scarcity

and economic need, to diversify our funding bases as much

as possible, because it's through that process that we can

really strengthen and sustain our programs and really grow

them.

We ask for students to say how they're using their

laptops. And here are some examples that came from the

thank you letters of students:

Michael said, "We use it for writing."

Jeovani used it for communication.

And we get all kinds of comments as to how they're

using those computers.

In terms of funding, as I mentioned VR provides the

majority of the funds. They're supporting things primarily

like field trips, exploration where students can go on

field trips and do job shadowing across the state.

And the last one there was Maxwell said he wanted

to complete homework now and in his future in electrical

wiring.

So those were only some of the examples of how the

students used those laptops.

Let's advance to the next slide.

Okay. And in terms of funding beyond the VR

program, we are also getting funds from community

foundations. We have gotten about $20,000 from community

foundations.

As I mentioned before, the VR program is using

funds primarily to help in outside technical assistance as

well as funding field trips. And this year we doubled the

amount of funding available for the laptop program.

And Bob Rust is going to talk a little bit about

some of the specifications and how that program works later

on in this webinar.

The AT act has also provided some of the funding

for the laptops and has been involved in providing some

direct training to the site coordinators and on assistive

technology and support that way.

Also the VR program is supporting through making

available assistive work technology team staff. We have

about 29 staff across the state. And now when a laptop is

awarded to a student where we believe that that student is

going to need assistive technology, then a referral is made

back to the counselor, to the assistive work technology

staff to do an assessment to identify specifically what it

is that that student will need. And then we have a pot of

funds that is separate from VR case funds that we use to

support the assistive technology that that student may

need.

And then also some of our other business partners

for supporting the program -- Touch the Future, Inc., the

ReBoot program for refurbishing -- you'll hear about that

later on.

Tech-Able, one of our assistive technology resource

centers, has been a real conduit for some of the early

computer laptop refurbish committee meetings and also for

working to advise us about looking at bids that we may

receive for laptops and also procurement of things like

assistive technology.

We've also recently this year gotten funding

through the Workforce Investment Act funds in one of the

areas of our state in the Augusta area. And through that

students have gotten some additional laptops, and they've

also gotten some job-training kinds of activities,

job-preparation training.

And we'll advance to the next slide.

I see we have a few more people who've joined us.

And at any time when I'm presenting, even though we'll have

a specific time for questions, feel free to jump up and

jump in.

In terms of other business partners, with some of

the work exploration activities and field trips, business

partners really play a vital role there. They help us in

many different kinds of ways.

One of the things that the refurbished laptop

committee does is help to define the specifications for the

laptops. And then we contract -- we've been contracting

with ReBoot, which is a refurbishing program of Touch the

Future. And that program also gets funds through the AT

Act program.

ReBoot actually acquires and refurbishes the

laptops. And we really appreciate the opportunity to have

worked with them. They've been very helpful.

I think, over the course of several years, we've

only had just maybe very few laptops that have been

refurbished where there's been a failure.

Most of that time it's happened indeed because of

something that the student did that we said don't download

a lot of extra things off the Internet, and it was really a

user error. But we still managed to do the fix and get it

up and running for the student again.

And so we're going to move on to the next slide.

We've had people who've come from across the

country to actually visit Touch the Future and ReBoot. And

I know that they welcome those opportunities to really show

what they're doing.

They are located right outside of Atlanta, and they

have a lovely facility, and it's just really an experience

to go through and see that whole process of how you

actually do refurbishing and make it work.

And while we're waiting for the next slide, I know

that, once the student gets laptops, different schools have

different approaches in different regions, different High

School/High Tech programs, in how they actually do the

awards to the students.

In some cases they will have meetings in the

schools and invite the parents in where the laptops can be

distributed. I know in Augusta there's a major

employer-awareness day where about 200, 250 people come,

teachers, students, usually about 20 employers. And the

students actually get up, give presentations about why this

is so important to them and what it's going to mean in

their lives.

So let's take a look at the laptop specifications,

the processor speed. As you can see, these are pretty

snazzy systems. Processor speed is 1.6 gigahertz or

greater. The Ram is 1 gigabyte. Hard drive is 60

gigabytes or greater. Additional drives, DVDs, CD

read/write.

I can see it, Liz. I can see the slide.

Okay. USB ports, at least one. Screen size 15.4

LCD size screen. We like to get a little bit larger size

screen because, for some of the students, it's just easier

to work with that if they have any kind of learning

disability or an impairment that otherwise would indicate a

larger screen.

Wireless, yes. It's built-in. Ethernet, yes.

Battery, cord, yes. Operating system, XP Pro. And the

software is MS Office 2007, Open Office, and security

software as well.

This also comes with a three-month warranty and a

laptop carrying case. And this year I think ReBoot was

able to get a very competitive price for us. Some people

asked, "Is it better to do a refurbished laptop, or is it

better to do a laptop that you just buy commercially

because we know that prices continue to go down?"

And I think Bob will still address that. I don't

feel like we're at the tipping point. It's made good

business sense for us, and it's worked very nicely.

And so with that, I think we're ready to turn it

over to Bob. And he'll jump in and really talk more about

ReBoot and how they operate this program.

Thanks so much, Liz.

And before we move on, does anybody have any

comments or questions about the program and how we're

operating so far? Okay.

Well, we'll just roll on to the next slide.

Hey, Gigi. I'm glad you're here.

Any questions? All right. We always like to give

a pause because people get absorbed in listening to what's

going on with the webinar. And we really encourage your

questions. And if there's anything that we've said that

needs a little clarification or you just want to make a

comment. Is this helpful? Anything else we need to be

addressing? Please jump right in.

And with that, I will turn it over to Bob.

KOBENA BONNEY: I have a question before you do.

BOB RUST: I think I heard someone who did have a

question. I'm going to turn it over to them for a moment.

KOBENA BONNEY: This is Kobena Bonney in Boston. I

had a question about the specs for the laptops.

You said 15 inches or bigger. And my question is,

since these are laptops, the bigger they are, the heavier

they naturally would be.

So why the preference for 15 or larger, and does

that preclude smaller screens like 13, et cetera?

JOY KNISKERN: And I will answer that. It doesn't

preclude -- you're right. It does mean that it's going to

be a little bit larger laptop.

And if there were a student who specifically stated

or if on an evaluation we found out that they did indeed

need to use a much smaller laptop -- I have a wonderful

colleague who uses a very small laptop. And if that were

to be the case, we would certainly jump on to looking at

how we could provide for that. It might not be a

refurbished laptop in that case.

And, Bob, if you would like to add anything else to

this question. And then, when we're done with that, we

have a question from Cheryl about DeKalb County referrals.

And we'll get to that in just a minute.

BOB RUST: Sure, Joy. I can actually answer that a

little bit better. Those are minimum requirements on the

High School/High Tech program. As Joy indicated before,

some students require larger screens. And that would be

the 17-inch screens that we do provide the High School/High

Tech program.

There also are -- there's not a problem actually

associated with the weight because a lot of the systems we

get are slimline-type products that are 15.6 and greater in

size in screens. So the weight differential, based upon

the much older laptops, doesn't really exist anymore.

And I believe that the person that was asking the

question was probably alluding to the fact that there are

10.1-inch screens on the Atoms right now. But the Atoms

are very restrictive to the software that can be run on

them and also how that software can be loaded. It can only

be loaded through the Internet. It cannot be loaded by

CD-ROMs because they don't have any CD-ROMs that come with

them.

Joy, if you wanted to address that or if you want

to go to that next question before I start my program, let

me know.

JOY KNISKERN: Yes. I want to address this

question.

And Cheryl asked, "How many referrals are coming

from DeKalb County?"

And DeKalb County, for those of you who are on this

webinar from other states, is a county of the Metro Atlanta

area.

I know that we have several High School/High Tech

sites in the DeKalb County area. And I don't have a way

right now to pull up the database and to tell you how many

DeKalb County referrals we're getting to either the High

School/High Tech program or specifically for the

computer-laptop program.

But I'd be happy to get back to you with that

information. We do have a way to get to a database on the

secured system, and we can let you know about that.

I will say that this year one of the steps our

management took within the VR Program, since these are

VR-funded laptops, they ask that we provide laptops only

for students who had applied for VR services.

And with that, there's been the parallel

expectation that we across the state work as closely as

possible to move as many of the students as possible onto

VR case loads. And they still have to obviously go through

an eligibility process there.

One of the things that we're also looking at is,

for students who are not funded through the VR program

for -- you know, maybe they're students in the tenth grade,

and we just don't think that it's a reasonable amount of

time where they could reach their employment goals by

coming on board in the tenth grade but yet they're in the

High School/High Tech program.

So how could they indeed participate in the laptop

program? And that's one of the reasons why we've gone to

community foundations and looking at some other grants

where we could pull in additional outside funds that are

not tied to the VR program and grow this effort.

We have also had a request from a very well-known

national organization that wants to be able to find a way

to put laptops into the hands of students with different

kinds of visual loss impairments. And so we're looking at

that.

Anyway, that's a long answer to your question. And

I'll be happy to get back with you with the specifics for

DeKalb County.

BOB RUST: Joanne wanted to test her mic. Could

you go ahead and do that?

Okay. Thank you very much, Joy.

Hopefully everybody can hear me at this point.

Let's see. I'm getting that the audio is gone. Are you

hearing me? So the audio is gone for some folks, but for

others it's still there.

So anyway, I'll move forward with my presentation.

And, Liz, if you can go to the next slide, please.

My name is Bob Rust, and I'm the ReBoot and reuse

procurement manager for Touch the Future. I'm going to go

very quickly on what Touch the Future is. We are a

501(C)(3) nonprofit. We're in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated

to increasing the knowledge about, access to, and

acquisition of assistive technology services for all of our

clients.

The major portion of Touch the Future, as far as

the part that is a connector to all of the services that

Touch the Future manages, is the A link. And A link, which

also includes assessment, advocacy, training, and

matching -- and I'll go through each one of these quickly,

and then we'll be obviously focusing on ReBoot.

We have the ReBoot program, which is our major

program. We have Regained Mobility, which is the AT and

DME side of Touch the Future, offering those services to

clients. We have the program that manages all of our

recycling and repurposing. We also have our donor project.

And then we have our reuse and recycling partnerships that

we've set up.

Can you go to the next slide, please.

As we move forward with this, we're going to be

discussing how the reuse and recycling and AT

partnership -- that includes computer, AT, DME, and daily

living products.

Touch the Future partnerships includes hospitals

and home health care agencies; national organizations such

as the American Disability Act, the National Cristina

Foundation.

We have manufacturers and distributors. We also

have disability organizations: The Muscular Dystrophy

Association, Paralyzed Veterans Association. And we also

have Champions Made From Adversity, which is a sports

organization that we deal with.

We also have universities: Clemson University and

the University of South Carolina Upstate.

Our recycling agencies is actually done through a

partnership that we have with IERC, which is the

International Electronic Recycling Coalition, which is made

up of a lot of different recyclers throughout the United

States and North America.

We also have municipalities that we deal with from

the standpoint of helping them with their recycling efforts

and the repurposing of their equipment that they have.

Our funding sources are the Tools For Life agency,

the foundations United Way, and corporations.

The distribution network that we utilize to be able

to get out to all of the clients that we serve is the major

ones: The STAR Network; FODAC, Friends of Disabled Adults

and Children, which work with us; and the ILC, Independent

Living Centers, that are available to us.

We also have affiliated agencies, which the biggest

one we have currently is Roosevelt Warm Springs ReBoot.

And I'll get into that later because they're one of the

ones who indicated to us that they wanted to have a ReBoot

at their location. And it kind of dovetails into what this

presentation is about on how do you create a reuse and

recycling group and how do you manage it.

Next slide, please.

The next slide gives you the capability of the

ReBoot program itself. Touch the Future, it's the most

recognized and nationally benchmarked, trademarked

program -- ReBoot is. ReBoot has been around since 1997,

and it's really grown tremendously since that first

started. I believe it started at FODAC, Friends of

Disabled Adults and Children, at a little room in there.

ReBoot is a computer and technology service to meet

the customer needs. And it reuses, recycles, and limits

landfill usage.

In fact, we have a zero-landfill tolerancy. We do

not allow anything that we receive as donations to go to a

landfill whatsoever at any of the locations that we manage.

If you can move to the next slide, please.

The next slide will show some outcomes of our

program -- of the ReBoot program. We had 9,192 computers

that have been issued. We established a distribution

network through an AT partnership.

ReBoot provides consumer access to computers and

specialized AT, which also includes the matching and the

training aspect of that.

It employs individuals with disabilities and

seniors at Touch the Future.

Uses volunteers and develops skills. A lot of

times we'll have volunteers that come to us, in fact,

several of them recently have come to us having a different

skill set through the building industry. They had worked

at building homes and so forth. And they discussed with

us, "How can I get a different skill set so that I can get

a different kind of job? My job doesn't exist any more."

And so they've come in here. They've learned how

to refurbish computers. They've learned how to use

computers. And it has allowed several of them to go out

and obtain jobs that they would not normally have been able

to obtain without those skill sets and to transfer those

skill sets.

We've kept 174 tons of e-waste out of landfills

from the inception of our project. I'm trying to remember

when we first started keeping track of that. And I believe

it was four years ago when we first started keeping track

of that. No, in 2007. So 2007 is when we started keeping

track of it.

We are trademarked. And the ReBoot program is a

turnkey process for anyone who wishes to get involved with

it.

Next slide, please.

Continuing, looking at the ReBoot features, which

will be coming up on the next slide, I've broken out the

aspect of a reuse program into donations that are required.

You have to have the donations in order to have the

refurbishment process occur such as ReBoot has. So you

have to build a donations process.

Within the donations process you'll have

evaluations of everything that comes in your door. Back

door, meaning things that come in from corporations and

truckloads of equipment; to the front door, which is the

single items that come in from individuals who donate their

laptops and their computers and so forth and monitors and

everything.

Out of that evaluation process, we have found over

the years that 25 percent of those evaluations --

25 percent of those systems can actually be used.

75 percent are bad.

So if you're looking at building out a ReBoot-type

process, or if you're looking at building out a

refurbishment thing, then you're looking at 75 percent of

everything you get is going to probably go to end of life,

which we call end-of-life technology or recycling.

25 percent can actually be refurbished. Out of the

25 percent that we receive that is good, then those are

refurbished. Those are desktops, laptops. That includes

Apples and other types of assistive technology because we

do refurbish assistive technology devices also.

Under the refurbishment piece, we reuse everything

that we can. That's the 25 percent I discussed. And that

takes parts and pieces and everything to do that.

And then the rest of it goes to the end-of-life

technology. Now, when I indicate aggregation, what I'm

indicating is that we take all of the equipment that we

receive in from all of the places that we have them, and we

aggregate them in one location.

The reason for that is -- and I'll get into the

difference later -- but the end-of-life side or the

recycling side of this requires an aggregation of

equipment.

No one wants to pick up one or two or three pieces.

They want to pick up truckloads of pieces. And that's what

allows you to set up an actual revenue stream based upon

the end-of-life side.

On the distribution piece, you obviously are taking

the refurbished piece, and you're distributing it to your

customer. And you're matching and you're trading when you

do that.

With the High School/High Tech aspect, we

distribute it to High School/High Tech. I believe we're

almost up to a hundred this year on the laptops. And we

distribute it to them for them to distribute to the actual

student.

So we didn't deal with the student, but we did deal

with the program as far as distributing that equipment to

them.

The equipment that goes to the end-of-life

technology side or the recycling side we demanufacture.

And I'll get into that also. But demanufacturing is an

important part associated with end of life. And the

reasoning behind that is because the demanufacturing piece

allows you to increase the value of the recycling that

you're distributing to the recyclers.

On the distribution -- let's go back to the

distrubution side again or discuss it a little bit more --

you have consumers, groups, and organizations, and the AT

partnership that we built out through our distribution

network.

And that partnership includes about 12 sites at

this point throughout Georgia and South Carolina. So that

allows us to not only be able to distribute equipment to

those sites to match their clients' needs, but that also

allows for them to be able to receive equipment in at those

sites.

And we aggregate at our site for that equipment.

We've got about 12,700, I think, square feet of aggregation

space to be able to manage that equipment -- 12,470.

On the other aspect, one of the biggest things on

the donation side, because I'm going to rotate back up to

that, is identity protection. That is a big, big plus to

be able to manage the donations that come in; make sure all

the hard drives are pulled from every system that comes in,

even the 75 percent that are bad; and wipe all of those

drives or destroy those drives through a process of

shredding.

So that is decided by the client at the time. If

they wish to have some sort of certificate of destruction

or a certificate of wiping, we provide that to them through

the ReBoot program.

Probably 90 to 95 percent of the clients, including

corporations who donate to us, they don't have that

requirement. But we indicate to them that we do wipe all

of their data from all of the hard drives that are on the

systems that we receive.

So we do have identity protection as one of our

biggest facets of the ReBoot program when the donations

come in during the evaluation process.

Can I have the next slide, please.

The last facet of the features associated with

ReBoot -- after you've done your evaluations, you've done

your refurbishment, and now you're doing your

distribution -- is the warranty and the maintenance side.

So you have to build out some sort of warranty

program that is both documented and given to the client and

signed off by the client that there is a warranty

associated with the refurbished equipment.

A one-year warranty is what we allow for our

desktops. That covers the hardware and the software that

we provided, which was the operating system, Microsoft

Office 2007, and security software.

Any software that the client provides on the system

during that year we do not warranty. So obviously if their

software interferes with ours -- like a lot of problems

occur with computers when they have multiple security

software aspects associated with them. They have McAfee.

They have several different systems in there, and it

interferes with ours.

They bring it in, and they say, "I have a problem.

It's not working correctly." And it's because they have

more than one security system, and they're all fighting

each other at the time.

On the laptop it's a different situation. We have

a 90-day warranty on the laptops. And again, that's parts

and software. And we do not warranty the batteries

associated with the laptops because of the way that

customers tend to use those batteries.

The optimum way to manage a battery -- and I kind

of digress a little bit here, but the optimum way to manage

a battery is that you allow it to drain until it's ten

percent, then you recharge it.

If you keep it plugged into the outlet, it will

drain the battery during that period of time and reduce the

life of the battery significantly. Up to 70 percent of a

brand-new battery can be reduced in life if it's maintained

plugged into a power outlet.

We also have -- for the warranty and the

maintenance process we also have help-desk support. That

help-desk support can be phone -- they call us on the phone

and talk to us and tell us that there's a problem with it.

And we may or may not be able to repair that situation over

the phone with them.

We also have on-site service which they can bring

the equipment into our site, and we can repair it. And

that includes bringing it into our remote sites that I

indicated to you before through our network. And we come

and pick it up, bring it back, repair it, and then bring it

back to the remote site for distribution back to the

customer.

Our newest process is remote access or virtual

access to the PC. For those particular clients who are out

of the realm of being able to bring their computer into us,

and it is something that can be solved by a tech actually

interfacing on their PC itself, we have a remote-access

product that we utilize so that we can actually gain access

to their computer from our site here and fix their computer

at that point.

Next slide, please.

So now that you know how ReBoot works and how the

features of ReBoot work, let's discuss computer reuse

models. How do you choose a model to be able to manage?

Or how you do you choose a model to be able to make a

decision on how you want to move forward with a reuse

project?

First of all, you have to define the scope and

service or the mission and goals of the model you're going

to have. You also have to have an area of marketing, a

service area. Are you just going to manage your particular

area where you have your facility, or are you going to go

spread out into other areas?

What types of machines or equipment are you going

to use? Your resources. What are your funds? The type of

people and how many people you're going to need. The space

that you need to have and the equipment that you need to

have through the donations.

What are your expectations? The issues associated

with your expectations. The frequency by which you deal

with your customer base. Is it every day? Is it once a

month? Is it once a quarter?

And the training associated with issuing the

equipment to the client. How much responsibility and

liability are you taking on by managing that training

aspect? Because it is required. You do have to train the

client on how to use the equipment when they receive it

because that releases you from liability.

Also then the last part is the sustainability. How

are you going to maintain your funding? How are you going

to deal with fees that you have to manage in order to keep

the doors open?

And then the recycling aspect or end-of-life

technology piece is also another revenue stream for your

company to be able to help sustain the scope and the

mission that you're trying to deal with.

There are basically two model types. One is you

obtain the refurbished products from another source.

That's basically what High School/High Tech does. They

purchase the products, but then they distribute those out.

And they have a whole process set up, as you have heard

from Joy, about distributing those to the students.

The students have to go through a process to obtain

those laptops. So that type of model allows you to obtain

the computers from another source and then manage the

back-end piece, which is the distribution, who gets it, the

training aspect, everything else.

The other model is to become an actual refurbisher

yourself, which is what ReBoot is. So if you want to

become a ReBoot, then you would have to be able to manage

all the processes associated with that.

And the next slide will indicate what some of those

processes are and how to obtain refurbished computers,

which is the first piece of the whole thing. So if we can

go to the next slide.

When you're setting up the model type that you

want, you have to establish the program parameters. And

again, that goes to, am I going to get my computers or am I

going to get my equipment from somewhere else, or am I

going to rebuild, or am I going to refurbish those

computers myself?

You also have to obtain the refurbished computers

from a source. You can obtain them -- obviously you want

to obtain them from a qualified refurbisher.

And what is a qualified refurbisher? That is a

refurbisher who is generally a Microsoft-registered

refurbisher or someone who has specifications associated

with qualification. And they've built out -- they have

documentation basically that indicates that they are a

qualified refurbisher.

And you need to have that so you understand what

they are capable of doing and that they are protecting the

equipment that you're obtaining.

You also have to have specs associated with the

computer that you are trying to obtain, costs associated

with it, and accessories such as bags or power cords,

additional power cords, things like that that you may have

to have.

Also services of a qualified refurbisher need to be

defined. When you obtain the equipment from the

refurbisher, what are they giving you back in regards to

that? Obviously maintenance of -- any kind of service

associated with it and things like that.

So from that perspective, you need to be able to

see what you're obtaining from the refurbisher when you're

obtaining the equipment.

Then you have the issuing standpoint. From issuing

you have to have space, someplace you're going to be doing

it, even if it's out of your car; paperwork for the

applicant to be able to issue the equipment to them;

agreements so that you have liability issues managed; and

you have sign-offs so that, when the client receives the

computer and you've trained them on how to turn it on and

how to use it, then you have the capability of being able

to have the liability issue at least managed a little bit

better.

The training, which is basic, usually includes the

instructional material that you're training them on too.

So not only do you verbally train the person how to turn

the laptop on, for instance, and so forth, but also you

give them instructional material so they can review that,

go back to that and look at it.

You also most likely will have some specialized

software that will be dealt with with that computer. You

have to have training associated with that specialized

software also.

That training can be provided by the group, your

group that's doing that. Or you can get the training from

another group that managed that process.

So then you have the maintaining of the records.

The equipment, in order to maintain the warranty for that

equipment, you have to maintain records associated with the

equipment, and so does the refurbisher who gave you that

equipment to begin with.

There's also safety issues associated with the

equipment so that you're, again, defraying the availability

of any kind of problems, people plugging it into the wrong

plug, that kind of thing.

Your consumers. You want to maintain information

and records on your consumers. You don't want to violate

any HIPAA requirements, but you do want to maintain the

contact information, and you want to indicate the outcomes

of how many consumers you served and how many of them were

satisfied and what was their degree of satisfaction.

The whole thing is based upon a cost, and it's

based upon size and expectations. So again, in looking at

creating your refurbished process, so to speak, then you

would need to see how big do I want to be, and what are my

expectations on how many clients I want to serve?

The cost is a number of issues that you plan on:

the types of client, the funds, and do you do it monthly,

quarterly or daily, as we indicated before?

Next slide, please.

Now, that's dealing on the first side -- this past

slide has been dealing on obtaining the computers through a

refurbisher.

Now, to become a refurbisher, I've built out two

scenarios here. One is a small refurbisher, and one is a

medium refurbisher. And as soon as that slide comes up,

you'll be able to see that.

The small refurbisher and the medium refurbisher

all have the same requirements associated with them, but

the requirements match the size that you're going for.

So let's go with the small refurbisher first, and

I'll take you through a scenario on that.

You have to establish the program parameters, which

means that you basically do a business area analysis on

what you're going to be as a refurbisher.

You have to look at your staffing requirements. A

small refurbisher can get away with one or two people, but

one of them has to be a tech, and one of them has to be

A-plus certified.

You have to have a facility to house the

refurbishment in. Office and shop equipment are required.

You have refurbishment equipment that's required.

In other words, what are you going to be getting in the

door that you're going to refurbish? And parts that you're

going to need for things that fail.

You also have to have the recycling component or

the end-of-life technology component to manage that

75 percent that will fail the process.

You have to be able to issue from that site. You

have to be able to train from that site. And you obviously

have to maintain the records.

Now, all of those things are done from the small

refurbisher's side to the medium refurbisher's side. And I

didn't get into the large refurbisher because those are

huge, and some of these parameters are just way out of line

for them. But this basically manages it for the small

refurbisher and the medium refurbisher.

And again, the difference between the two is that

the small doesn't have to aggregate or demanufacture from

their recycling aspect. They have a decrease -- or they

decrease a piece of the sustainability factor. They don't

have to sustain as much as a medium refurbisher does.

The location is key and can substantially increase

the cost between a small and medium refurbisher. And the

laws are different in association with encompassing the

requirements for a small refurbisher and a medium

refurbisher.

Both of those levels of refurbishment need to be in

a position where they can manage the laws required and

where they can also be -- both of them need to be Microsoft

authorized, a refurbisher of Microsoft, a registered

refurbisher.

The next slide, which is already up, is to indicate

that we, Touch the Future, are available to help anybody

interested in being a refurbisher or looking at a business

model to be able to get into the reuse or recycling aspect.

The various levels of consulting that we do are

business process analysis to see if it's even viable for

you to do something like this; the project management to be

able to manage the project to build out a ReBoot type of

entity; the purchasing on how to purchase the products that

are being required; and also probably the most important is

the risk management involved in the risk of building out a

refurbishment process and a refurbishment group.

ReBoot itself has a turnkey process. It's all

documented. It's managed. And it can be built out in a

fairly quick time frame for someone to become a ReBoot -- a

licensed ReBoot recycler -- excuse me -- refurbisher.

The consulting we provide also has advantages by

reducing the cost, reducing risk, and improving the quality

and the outcomes associated with it. So that's kind of my

pitch to let you know that we know what we're doing.

A couple of little indices here.

One -- I'm just going to kind of go on two little

areas that we had. One, we were approached, I guess two

years ago now, by a group who said, "We like the ReBoot

process, but we really want to use it for training because

we want to use it for getting jobs for people and things

like that."

So we dealt with that group. We actually did a

turnkey ReBoot process with them. So we've already done

this before. And that ReBoot process ended up, and is

still running, at Roosevelt Warm Springs. And they use it

to train students.

And I think they're getting into the Veteran's

Administration now on veterans coming back from Iraq and

training them on how to deal with computers, how to

refurbish computers and so forth so they can go out and get

a job.

The other aspect, to look at the low end of it, we

were approached by a group in another state, and they were

saying, "We like the ReBoot process. How much would it

take? What would we be able to accomplish?" and so forth.

And after going through the consulting aspect on

it, they saw that their best bet was to build out an

end-of-life technology side and do recycling first to build

out a revenue stream so they can do ReBoot later and

actually do the turnkey system later.

So anyway, this slide that we're on right now just

introduces myself and indicates the main office location in

Tucker, Georgia, and our South Carolina branch in Anderson.

And also, if anyone needs to contact us to make sure that

they have our contact telephone to do that. And to

remember that Touch the Future is a Tools For Life grantee

and a United Way-funded organization.

If there's any questions -- let's see. I have one

up from Joy. It says, "Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute

operates in Georgia. VR training" -- oh, I see. So she's

just indicating information to you.

If there's any other questions, you can ask them

now or forever hold your peace. Thank you.

JOY KNISKERN: Thank you, Bob. That was excellent.

Very helpful information.

And I know that also we've had groups from other

assistive-technology-act-funded states who've come to

ReBoot for some consulting there and had nothing but rave

reviews as to what happened.

I wanted to mention something before we go on. And

if anybody has any questions, feel free to raise your hand;

push your voice button, your microphone; or key in the chat

area.

I wanted to recognize somebody who was on earlier,

not sure if she's with us right now. But Yvette Marrin

with the National Cristina Foundation.

Frankly, I don't think that we would be here with

ReBoot if she hadn't worked with us in the very early days

and since then.

She is executive director of the National Cristina

Foundation, which really does a lot in terms of working

with state and territories and partners who are interested

in looking at computer refurbishing program and does an

excellent job of bridging corporate partners to groups at

the state and local levels. So, Yvette, we're really

pleased that you could join us today.

And with that, we're going to jump over to Lindsey

Bean-Kampwerth. She's going to be talking about planning a

quality refurbishing program. And Lindsey, take it away.

(Audio skipped ...) look at sound. I'll mention

that Lindsey is a licensed occupational therapist with her

Ph.D. and joined us several years ago to do her final

internship.

She's worked with us since then on a part-time

basis looking at quality indicators for AT reuse. And the

information that she's going to present are some of the

quality indicators that you can find for refurbishing

programs on our website at www.passitoncenter.org.

And so Lindsey has indicated that she has tested

this with all the same equipment. She's going to log out

and log back on to join us there.

And if you haven't had a chance to go to that

website, there are many quality indicators that have been

developed through a very interactive process with many

people from many parts of the country looking at -- if you

were starting any kind of refurbishing program: durable

medical equipment, assistive technology, computers -- what

are some of the key things that you want to look at to be

sure, if you're going to do it, you do it right.

So with that, I think I'll pull off the mic and

just see if Lindsey is ready to join us.

Liz, do you have anything that you'd like to share?

LIZ PERSAUD: While Lindsey is getting back on, I

just wanted to say that Charlotte Young from Augusta VR

asked a question earlier. I just wanted to read it out

loud and read Bob's answer.

She asked, "What is the cost of the refurbished

computer?"

And Bob answered that and said, "It depends on the

specs, but you can contact ReBoot directly to find out

because there is a range to the cost."

So again, if you have any questions about the cost

of computers or laptops, you can contact ReBoot directly.

I'm going to jump off the mic for just a second and

see if Lindsey can try to get sound going. And if not,

Trish is going to be our lifesaver and jump on and do

Lindsey's part.

So, Lindsey, I'm releasing the mic now.

TRISH REDMON: Liz, can you hear me? Great.

I'm Trish Redmon with the Pass It On Center, and

I'm really sorry Lindsey's sound is not working today. We

always do a sound check, but from day to day we find that

sometimes we don't have the same results with the same

circumstances.

So Liz, if you'll go to the next slide, we'll talk

about some additional factors in planning a refurbishing

program.

Bob did a wonderful job in touching on the major

factors to consider: Who's your audience, and what scale

or scope of program are you attempting.

But when you start a reuse program, first you need

to consider, you know, who do you want these computers for,

and what are your options for meeting that need.

So if you have the target group, you might attempt

to locate funding to purchase new computers for those

customers. But we know what a tough assignment that is in

this economy. Or you might contract with an existing

program such as ReBoot that's already refurbishing programs

and have them meet your needs if they have the capacity to

do so. Or you may decide that it really is appropriate to

establish a refurbishing program.

And Bob discussed some of the things to consider

and the value of getting good advice and consulting in

advance.

Next, Liz.

When you're thinking of refurbishing computers, in

addition to the business factors, there are a number of

indicators of quality for AT reuse, in addition to those

that apply to all reuse programs, that have specific

implications for programs that refurbish computers.

And we're going to walk through a few of those, and

you'll see the things Bob touched on plus a couple more

issues.

For example, device tracking. We have a quality

indicator that says you must keep track of your inventory

of available devices.

And that means that you need to have some way of

uniquely identifying every donated device. You need to be

able to determine the availability of devices by different

types. You need to assign, for your business purposes and

for reporting purposes in many cases, a value for each

device for your inventory.

You want the ability to track every donated device

in case they might be subject to some kind of recall or

consumer warning.

And you want to be able to identify the recipients

of those devices. And Bob touched on, without violating

HIPAA, there are things we want to do to be able to track

our customers.

So that's one indicator of quality.

Another is the evaluation of those devices. And we

want a written procedure to value those devices for

inventory and reporting. So you need some consistent way.

And some people decide, well, it will be X percent

of the original manufacturer's suggested retail price, or

maybe you've chosen to depreciate it and try to look at

market value. But whatever you use, it needs to be a

consistent system.

When you evaluate donated devices, first of all you

need a policy and procedure for what will you accept. And

Bob mentioned that 75 percent of the devices that they have

donated are not useful for their purposes.

So it's really helpful for ReBoot because they have

an established program for end-of-life recycling to gain

revenue from that process.

But if you don't, you may not want to accept things

that don't meet your needs. So you may want to specify

exactly what types of devices you will accept for donation

if you can't handle the end-of-life processing.

And when you get to the donation -- next, Liz.

When you get to the evaluation of those devices,

you want to consider the things Bob mentioned: How much

refurbishing is required? What will it cost to bring that

device up to the specifications that you require?

Maybe more than its worth. So at that point you

have an end-of-life situation. And you need to either

break it down for component parts or simply recycle it to

an environmentally approved recycler.

Next, please.

Bob touched on the need for protecting the donor's

privacy by removing the personal data on every hard drive.

And this requires that you have properly trained

technicians and that you have the appropriate software

tools to remove data in a manner that's consistent with the

Department of Defense standard. And that standard has

become the industry-accepted standard for what really

removes data.

And for those of you who aren't familiar with this,

we think if we delete everything on a hard drive it's not

there. But any really good computer technician can recover

the data that you deleted fairly easily if you really

haven't done a wipe of that hard drive to totally remove

it.

And if the volume warrants in a refurbishing

program, then there's equipment available to allow you to

wipe the disk of multiple computers simultaneously. But

that would be an added cost for you.

One of the really critical indicators of quality is

software licensing. You need to have written policies and

procedures for the loading of licensed software to ensure

that you're complying with current law and that you aren't

violating that software publisher's licensing agreements,

which can leave you subject to enormous fines if you do

that.

So as Bob mentioned, it's important to become an

authorized refurbisher, usually with Microsoft, so that you

have access to that. Otherwise you can only reload the

software that came with that same computer.

You'll want to be able to track the purchase and

assignment of licenses and, as I mentioned, reload only

original software. And that's only if you have everything

you're supposed to have when they donate it.

So Bob's pointing out that the DOD wipe is seven

layers deep on that hard drive to make sure that there's no

data left.

So let's talk for a couple of minutes about what

you do before you start a program.

If you want to start a refurbishing program, you're

starting a new reuse program basically. Maybe you have an

existing reuse program with some infrastructure.

But first you want to write a strategic plan, which

means you're touching on the things Bob mentioned in

developing mission and objectives.

And then you'll need a business plan. And maybe

you want to do a business plan for one or more options

about how you'll start this and how you'll perform the

task. And when you've done that, then you can make a

decision based on the best available analysis.

Now, we have models for both strategic planning and

business planning in our knowledge base on the Pass It On

Center website.

So if we want to start small -- next slide, please,

Liz.

If we want to start small, Bob mentioned that you

need at least one certified technician. You're still going

to need some setup with adequate power, lighting, and

appropriate environmental controls, the specialized tools

that person will need for software for data removal, safety

gear. And so you have some basic investment.

You need to think about the scope of the program

and the group you want to serve, the eligibility

requirements, and the kind of device you'll provide.

How will you staff? Most programs are -- Liz, has

a question up.

Bob says, "We cannot reuse a customer operating

system. We must reload original media or be a Microsoft"

authorized reseller -- "registered refurbisher." I'm

sorry.

So as we're looking at planning then, even if

you're going to staff this program with volunteers, one of

those volunteers needs to have the technical qualifications

to do the refurbishing.

And we know, from some experience with one of our

demonstration projects, that it's really easy to burn out

volunteers. We had a major program actually doing computer

refurbishing very successfully. But they got into a

situation of major burnout because they were totally

dependent on volunteer workers.

So most of our programs have some combination of

volunteers, contractors, or employees to keep a program

operating.

Bob mentioned tracking outcomes and planning for

sustainability. And planning for sustainability is both

planning for who will do the work and how you will fund the

program.

Next, please. We can go forward one more, Liz.

The financial considerations we touched on earlier.

Start-up costs are significant even if you're small. You

still need facility's equipment. You still need to recruit

staff. You still need to develop policies and procedures.

And once in business, you have the ongoing expenses

for that facility; the utilities and insurance; staffing;

and the acquisition of devices, whether they're donated or

you have some other agreement, but you have to acquire

spare parts and licenses.

So if you want to jump start an initial

refurbishing program -- next, Liz -- you can identify some

resources to facilitate that.

And one way is to see if you can find an

individual, a company, or an existing program that will

donate consulting services or provide them at a very

reasonable cost.

You certainly could talk to the folks at ReBoot and

see if their turnkey process is the most viable,

cost-effective solution for you, because it might be.

Or you may be able to partner with local resources.

Maybe you have a technical school that really trains

computer technicians who would work with you in your

refurbishing program. Or maybe you have a local company

that would donate some of those services part time for you

to refurbish computers for your program.

But most of all, as Bob mentioned -- and I want to

reenforce that -- you need an identified source for used

computers. Whether it's companies, organizations, schools,

or a broad spectrum of individuals, you are going to need

that source of computers to refurbish.

And Bob's pointed out that ReBoot can even help a

small start-up through consulting. There's no

underestimating the value of experience when you're

starting a new enterprise.

So for some quick additional resources, you can

look in our knowledge base to find the business-planning

tools in the organization module. In our program

operations module you'll see a lot of information on

refurbishing computers. And you'll see some information

from ReBoot there.

And you can always contact ReBoot directly. And

you saw their numbers earlier, but their website is

www.touchthefuture.us.

And some other helpful sites that may help you in

terms of background about things and information about

acquiring software technology would be www.techsoup.com and

www.openoffice.com.

Let's go on, Liz.

So we're just encouraging you, before you get

started, read the indicators of quality for AT reuse and

see which ones apply to a computer-refurbishing program.

Take a look at the business-planning guides, and use those

as models to help you get started in the process.

Any questions? If not, I'm going to turn this back

to Liz, who's going to encourage you to evaluate us.

LIZ PERSAUD: Great job, Trish. Thank you so much

for stepping in.

Wonderful job, everyone. Thank you, Joy. Thank

you, Bob.

We truly hope that this information has been

helpful. Again, we appreciate your time. We appreciate

you taking time out of your busy day -- we know how

precious your time is -- to join us today.

Before y'all step away, we do want to encourage you

to evaluate us. We apologize for a lot of the technical

difficulties. But as you know, that kind of comes with the

territory when you're in the field of technology. So thank

you, as always, for sticking with us.

But here's our link for our SurveyMonkey

evaluation. This really helps us to offer those CEUs and

CRCs.

So I'm going to actually post that in the chat

area. You should be able to click on that directly or copy

and paste it into your browser to fill out that survey. It

takes you less than five minutes. And thank you for doing

that and giving us the feedback that we need.

Here is the contact information for our speakers

today. Joy's e-mail is joy@passitoncenter.org. Lindsey is

lindsey@passitoncenter.org. And then you can contact Bob

and Joanne, the folks at Touch the Future and ReBoot,

through info@touchthefuture.us.

So again, thank you everyone for your time. We do

hope this information was helpful to you. Know that you

can get the webinar archive of this on our webinar page in

just a few weeks. And until next time, just get in touch

with us if you have any questions.

Thanks again, everyone. Bye-bye.