New Technology World

Blancco, a data sanitization and erasure company, has teamed up with British charity The Turing Trust to support digital skills development and circular economy initiatives in African schools.

Founded in 2015, The Turing Trust provides IT resources and training to schools in sub-Saharan Africa, including Liberia, South Sudan, Kenya, Ghana, Gambia and Malawi.

As part of its collaboration with The Trust, Blancco offers a free license for its remote drive erasure software. This enables charities to safely reuse donated desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets and other IT equipment.

So far, Blancco has worked with charities to securely wipe over 2,500 donated devices. These devices have been provided to schools in sub-Saharan Africa to improve children’s access to computer technology and digital skills training.

In January 2019, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations E-Waste Coalition found that approximately 50 million tons of e-waste (e-waste) are produced each year. poorest country in the world.

In order to safely redeploy IT equipment, organizations must first completely erase all data held on the device. Devices, once wiped, can be returned to secondary markets without the risk of sensitive personal information being carried over and continued access by new users.

According to The Turing Trust, its collaboration with Blancco will accelerate its ability to rehabilitate and redeploy donated IT equipment at both speed and scale, helping limit rising levels of e-waste.

In its latest annual report for 2021, The TuringTrust found that a total of 116,000 students were learning digital skills on computers donated by charities, and 3,452 were added to schools in Malawi, Kenya, Gambia and the UK that year. I outlined that a PC was provided. According to The Turing Trust, the company’s supply of used devices has saved the equivalent of 966 tons of carbon emissions.

When we started our operations in Malawi in 2016 (where we now run our largest project), only 3% of schools in Malawi had access to IT labs. Fast forward to 2022 and that figure is up to 81%.

James Turing, CEO of The Turing Trust, said:

“By focusing our efforts in Malawi, we have shown how much progress can be made with support from organizations and communities looking to donate devices and give them new life.

“We have a wide variety of donors and partners who support our cause. We partnered with Blancco to enhance the security of the process and hopefully encourage more organizations to donate.” I have.”

Blancco Chief Financial Officer Adam Moloney added that organizations are unnecessarily and physically destroying IT equipment because proper data sanitization practices are not in place. Simply unsustainable.

“We are very proud to be working with The Turing Trust to address the issue of social and digital inclusion for school children in Africa. We firmly believe it shouldn’t, and initiatives like this help us collectively reduce our impact on the planet, follow security best practices, and get devices to the communities that need them most.”

In June 2022, IT sustainability experts told Computer Weekly that in order to tackle the IT sector’s growing contribution to environmental destruction, companies must: We need to build a holistic circular economy around our business, he said.

For example, Craig Melson, associate director for climate, environment and sustainability at industry group TechUK, says that if an organization wants to reduce its carbon footprint, buying refurbished IT equipment is a good place to start. says.

He said that while many business buyers have expressed concerns about data on devices, “this is justifiable because we now have very robust processes for effective data wiping of used technology. It’s not a concern,” he added.