As part of Madison Metropolitan School District’s Earth Day 40 event at PercipEnz Technologies, Inc., First Lady Jessica Doyle challenges business and community leaders to join the District in establishing e-Cycling policies for computers that support student learning.
Company representatives interested in joining us at the event may contact Kerri Phillips by email at kphillips@percipenz.com or by phone at (608) 826-6000.
e-Cycling is an updated strategy for keeping electronics out of landfills and incinerators where businesses repurpose computers for educational use. In 1970, Wisconsin’s own U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day to bring environmental issues to the national agenda. The annual celebration has evolved to reflect the challenges of our time.
Technical partnerships and donations of repurposed computers are benefiting students, staff and administrators while also keeping monitors, hard drives and printers out of our local landfills.
Leadership in Action
PercipEnz Technologies, Inc., a Madison-based, developer of enterprise-class clinical and translational research management software joined the MMSD e-cycling team in 2009.
“We’re so excited to have adopted this new policy. It was a truly rewarding experience to deliver our first donation of four computers knowing that those would go into immediate service for the school district,” said Srini Kalluri, PercipEnz President & CEO.
Currently, computers in the MMSD are, on average, nine years old when they are replaced. Most businesses will obsolete their inventory of computer equipment at about four years. “This new policy makes it easy for businesses to contribute to the community as part of their normal business processes,” said Kalluri.
“In today’s tight budgetary environment and with increasing pressure to reduce property taxes, this situation presents an obvious and natural opportunity to repurpose technological hardware for the benefit of the school districts. Not only does such a program strengthen ties between the school district and the community, but it also saves tax payer dollars and reduces the burden on landfills,” said Kalluri.
In addition to donating used computers to the MMSD, PercipEnz is also planning to donate the time and experience of their employees to this program.
A Simple Process
Corporate donors can call the MMSD Technical Services HelpLine at 608-663-5853; ask about donating equipment and a MMSD technical team member will work with businesses to establish a customized plan for donation.
As of March 21, 2010, MMSD will accept donated equipment with the following minimum configuration:
PCs
- 2.0 GHz Pentium/Celeron/Athlon/Atom processor
- 1.0 GB RAM
- Internal IDE CD-ROM
- 10/100 NIC installed
- Preferred but not required:
- Monitor: 17″+ flat panel
- Brand: Dell or Lenovo/IBM
Other Equipment
- Laser printers (networked preferred)
- DLP or LCD data projectors (2000+ lumen)
- Document Cameras
- Student Response Devices
- Interactive Whiteboards (brand: Smart or Promethean)
Due to disposal costs, the district cannot accept equipment that does not meet the minimum standards or that is not approved by MMSD Technical Services prior to pick-up or delivery.
[...] This is an update to the original story found here. [...]