New partnership pledges to help more to bridge digital divide
Wiltshire Council has agreed to donate laptops to Wiltshire Digital Drive
People in Wiltshire suffering from a lack of access to digital technology are being given a boost thanks to a new partnership.
A new arrangement between Wiltshire Council and Wiltshire Digital Drive (WDD) will see the local authority donate laptops to help bridge the digital divide.
It will improve access to technology for people who need it most.
End-of-life devices will be handed over to WDD, who will wipe, refurbish and redistribute them to young people and adults without a laptop.
WDD Director Natalie Luckham said the partnership came about through Council departments reaching out to them to help people in need.
"A lot of people coming to us were internal services in the Council, so social care, employment teams, refugee departments, all of which are working with people who are digitally excluded, and this gave us the opportunity to talk to the IT teams in particular and ask them what they did with their end of life tech," she said.
After hearing about the proposal to forge a partnership, the Council leadership agreed to donate the devices.
"End of life to them may mean three years, in corporate land. But we know that a laptop has so much more life in it than just that three years," Natalie said.
She said it's "huge validation" of their commitment to help those being left behind by the demand for digital technology, something many of us take for granted.
WDD receives a lot of technology through donations from the public, across the county, but these devices from the Council will be much younger than many of those.
Natalie said: "Some of the older stuff we can use still we put Chrome operating systems on it, but this newer tech means that it's more you know the life of that laptop is going to be longer, it can have Windows 11, it'll have long larger storage.
"It means that we can meet the needs of more people, those in education, those looking to get into work."
Cllr Mel Jacob. Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Communities, Engagement, and Corporate Services said: “We are proud to be collaborating on this worthwhile project with Wiltshire Digital Drive, meaning people who really need it will continue to get access to digital technology and all the benefits that can bring. This project puts us at the forefront to achieve a nationally set aim of ensuring people are included in the increasingly digital world.
“Wiltshire Digital Drive has done some wonderful work throughout Wiltshire, bringing communities closer together, and in joining forces we hope we can help them to do even more for years to come.”
More information about Wiltshire Digital Drive can be found here.