“Underfunded schools are starving in the midst of plenty,” Robert explains. “Discarded computers are our nation’s most wasted educational resource.”

in 2007, Robert acquired 18 donated computers. But these computers were less help than he’d anticipated. The operating systems were slow. Some computers had viruses or malware. Students became frustrated.

Most of the computers’ problems could be fixed by wiping the disks and reinstalling the operating system—but buying new software for every donated computer would be prohibitively expensive.

With the help of his local LUG, he got Linux up and running on his 18 donated machines. Suddenly, they were fast. They were clean. They worked well in the classroom.