As a housing association, Link Group Ltd in Falkirk has a high turnover of old and unused IT Equipment. Rather than spending money sending this equipment to the scrap heap, they've partnered with a local social enterprise to refurbish it and give it a second life. Once refurbished, the laptops are loaned to their tenants and learners who were otherwise digitally excluded to help them continue their learning at home and gain all the benefits of being online.
Link tenants who go the extra mile and complete the City and Guilds Basic Digital Skills assessment are auto-enrolled on to the scheme - an excellent idea for integrating the scheme with the learning they already deliver and creating an extra incentive for the learners.
The Laptop Loan Scheme has been so successful that Link now also provides refugee families coming to live in Link properties with the loan of a laptop converted to Syrian Arabic as standard.