ReBOOT extends the life of computers and helps Municipal Social Network institutions

The idea is simple: to demystify, once and for all, the difficulty of repairing and recovering computers and to give its users the necessary skills and tools to extend the life of their computer equipment. But this is not the end of the municipal ReBOOT project, launched in June: the repaired equipment is made available to the Private Institutions of Social Solidarity (IPSS) of the Municipal Social Network so that they can use it in their projects and respond to the specific needs they have.

The ReBOOT training sessions started this month at UPTEC – Asprela I. The participants do not need to have previous experience in computer repair, but there they manage to arrange what seemed, at first glance, impossible to achieve. Each has, during the session, access to the ReBOOT Repair Manual and the necessary tools to make the repairs.

The Municipality of Porto also makes three computers available to each participant to be repaired, making these sessions a theoretical-practical experience where everyone can feel the power of the circular economy in their own hands. "We increasingly have to be involved in these phenomena, to give a better way to electronic equipment", said the vice president, during a visit to one of the sessions, which took place these days at UPTEC.

"We managed to take away the fear of repairing"

The ReBOOT project started in June and, so far, it has been possible to collect 280 pieces of computer equipment, "many of them coming from Águas e Energia do Porto and the Faculty of Economics", reveals Filipe Araújo.

The training sessions have already had more than 100 participants and 36 requests for equipment were made by the Social Network IPSS. By the end of the month, the Municipality expects to have about 100 pieces of equipment available, fully functional to be used again.

The sessions are facilitated by a Porto startup dedicated to valuing computer equipment with an environmentally and socially sustainable business model. "We managed to remove the fear of repairing and, who knows, reducing the number of electronic waste produced in the city", says João Botelho, from Recycle Geeks.

“We are a circular economy company. This is just one of the steps for the city to have a more circular economy", he adds.

Asprela + Sustainable

The next two ReBOOT sessions, to be held later this month, are already filled, but there are still vacancies available for the next ones, through the form available on the program's website.

Under the motto "Repair your computer. Transform the world", ReBOOT is an initiative of the Municipality of Porto and has the collaboration of Porto Digital, European Recycling Platform Portugal, LIPOR, Circular Economy Portugal and the municipal company Porto Ambiente, as well as the support of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), the Higher Institute of Engineering of Porto (ISEP), the Portucalense University and UPTEC.

"This is an important project, covered by another – the Asprela + Sustainable. The logic of computer reuse works a lot", underlines the councillor for Innovation and Digital Transition.

"There is still a lot to do in the area of reparability. As you can see in this project, we do not need to be engineers to repair. ReBOOT gives new life to unused computers", concludes Filipe Araújo.