Aditya Jaiswal, a local boy scout, collaborated with EqOpTech to refurbish old laptops and distribute them to students in need
By Alice Liu
When quarantine first started back in March of 2020, Troop 457 boy scout Aditya Jaiswal learned that 1 in 5 students in California lacked access to laptops and Wi-Fi during the transition into remote learning. Shocked and surprised at this statistics, Aditya was inspired to take on this “community service oriented project that would make a positive impact on society”. “It pained me to realize that something as essential as education just wasn’t accessible to everyone”, Aditya said.
Around that time, Aditya discovered EqOpTech from a family friend and decided to reach out to EqOpTech to help provide computers to students in need through his Eagle Project. “When Aditya first reached out to me at EqOpTech regarding an internship opportunity, I was truly impressed with his enthusiasm to help the community and his passion to learn-by-doing”, says Lucy Lee, EqOpTech Board Member. “He sets high targets and strives for technical excellence in his Eagle computer project - a mission-critical initiative during the COVID crisis.”
Once Aditya was approved to work on his Eagle Project, he reached out to his friends, neighborhood, and community for laptop donations. “After I got the laptops, I assessed what needed to be done,” he said. This involves steps like getting new SSDs, installing the right version of software, and more.
Throughout the course of his project, Aditya faced both operational and technical challenges. He mentioned that collecting laptops was challenging due to the pandemic and quarantine as well, but thank you to KPIX 5’s MacBook donations to EqOpTech, Aditya was able to procure SSD hard drive donations from his Troop, scoutmaster Solomon Lucas and Seagate to fix them up. Another challenge Aditya faced was trying to restore MacOS software on older computers. This was not an easy process as there were different hard drives, components, and more involved. He tried a lot of different methods and approaches until he was successful in installing the software version and making sure all the hard drives worked properly.
Aditya’s Eagle Project also involved a lot of Boy Scouts who assisted him in refurbishing computers. Because this was all virtual, Aditya dropped off laptops at each of the Scouts’ homes, met online to troubleshoot and collected the revived laptops once the project was done. He felt that this was “a difficult challenge to organize that since it’s all via Zoom.” Because Aditya couldn’t physically be there to offer guidance, he instead created a detailed YouTube video that showed the step-by-step process of refurbishing the computer “so that every Scout was on the same page.”
Aditya said that he learned a lot during the journey of his Eagle Project. “This taught me both leadership and technical skills,” he said. Aditya was not only able to plan a large-scale project, but was also able to tackle challenges and find solutions to problems when things went wrong. This project allowed Aditya to gain more experience in reaching out in a professional manner to community members and organizations for laptop donations, coordinating a project over Zoom, and working inside computers.
In October, Aditya completed his Eagle Computer Reboot Project after distributing the refurbished laptops at Santa Rita elementary school. Those laptops will then be assigned to students without devices at home. “The impacts of this project could not be any more crucial than the time we’re in,” Aditya states. These laptops allow students to have access to education during distance learning, where most everything is virtual. “I’m grateful to play a small part in making their future better and I hope that they get the education they deserve.” Over 30 laptops were donated to the Los Altos School District as a result of Aditya’s Eagle Project.
When asked about advice he’d give to others wanting to make an impact in their community, Aditya says to “do something you’re passionate about. It sounds cliché, but when the project is arduous and difficult and has hurdles, your passion for the project will be the one that makes you persevere and go through the project.” When he tried to find an Eagle Project, Aditya knew that he wanted to impact as many people as possible. He said working with computers and technology has always been a passion of his, and, with quarantine and distance learning, he was able to combine this passion with his passion for helping others into his Eagle Project. Aditya says that “it doesn’t have to be big, it doesn’t have to be small. Anytime you can impact someone’s life and put a smile on their face – that’s the most valuable thing you could do.”
Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, school is now online. With this development comes many challenges, including students' access to the very technology needed to attend online school. To help face this challenge, Aditya Jaiswal, a Bay Area boy scout, collaborated with EqOpTech to refurbish old laptops and distribute them to local schools and students in need. In this video, Aditya discusses his project in greater depth and the challenges he faced, among other topics. - Connor Song
A special thank you to Connor Song, EqOpTech intern, for editing Aditya Jaiswal’s Eagle Project interview video.
The Equal Opportunity Technology program is made possible thanks to the Los Altos Community Foundation community grant award. Visit here for more