iConsult eWaste initiative - computers for Les Quennevais School

Media Release                                                        14^th February 2007

Les Quennevais School receives 40 computers from eWaste initiative

Les Quennevais School has become the first school in Jersey to receive computers donated through the iConsult eWaste initiative.

The 40 computers, which were donated by Ogier, had been destined for disposal, however, after hearing about the initiative, Lee Turner from Ogier’s IT department and, coincidentally, an ex-Les Quennevais School student, contacted iConsult to let them know that the computers were available for donation.

Through the initiative, iConsult were able to marry up the needs of Les Quennevais School with the offer from Ogier and helped transport the computers to their new home.

John Thorp, Headmaster of Les Quennevais School, says: “IT is an essential component of every child’s education in the 21^st Century but the cost of equipment can be an obstacle to the expansion of a school’s IT network. This donation by Ogier is extremely generous and has allowed us to continue with our plans for the school’s IT education programmes. Importantly, the computers are of a sufficiently high specification to be useful in schools – very old computers would not have been valuable as they wouldn’t have been capable of running the appropriate software.”

Lee Turner of Ogier, says: “I’ve really enjoyed helping out my old school and am sure that the pupils will benefit from using these computers to learn and develop IT skills that will be extremely relevant to their futures. Donating the computers also makes sense from an environmental point of view as it prolongs their useful life and ultimately reduces the amount of toxic waste being disposed of.With this in mind, we have already made plans to donate computers to another local school and will continue to look for similar opportunities in the future.”

Tony Moffa of iConsult, says: “This shows just how easy it is to cut down on waste in the IT industry and help other organisations at the same time. If there are any other schools or voluntary organisations who think they’d benefit from computer equipment donated by Channel Island businesses, they should send an email to recycling@iConsultci.com, outlining the type of equipment they’d like and leaving their contact details. We’ll try to pair them up with donor companies who prefer to see their unwanted equipment in use rather than ending up on the tip.”

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors

-E-waste refers to electronic waste and encompasses items such as mobile phones, televisions and computers.

-Over 200 tonnes of dangerous eWaste is dumped in Jersey every year.

-The World Forum on E-Waste was held on Thursday November 30^th in Nairobi.

-More information about the conference can be found at www.basel.int and http://www.iisd.ca/basel/cop8

-iConsult is a Channel Islands based IT services provider that also operates in the Isle of Man and as far away as Geneva.

-iConnect, the hosted applications product makes life a lot easier for smaller companies by removing the demands of running their own IT. Instead, all of a company’s software applications (regardless of whether they are specialist applications or more common ones like Microsoft Word) are provided on servers held in a secure data centre outside the company. iConsult run these servers and applications, looking after and upgrading them as required. This results in much lower running costs for companies and actually gives them 24hour secure access to their applications from anywhere in the world.