BOCA RATON –Nicholas Yonezawa is still dealing with the rigors of being a college freshman at the University of Florida.
In his mother’s garage in Boca Raton are 50 old computers that were given new life by Project GreenED, an organization Nicholas founded in 2009 with a group of fellow students at FAU High.
“Right now, I’m trying to raise $3,000 to ship the computers to Brazil,” his native country, Nicholas told the Boca Raton Tribune.
He said he’ll willingly accept donations to help get those computers to that South American country. Those interested in helping out can fill out the donation form on his website, www.projectgreened.com.
About 18 months ago, Nicholas, now 19, began to consider the statistics of computer disposal.
Nicholas Yonezawa with Paulo Eccal, mayor of Brusque, Brazil, a supporter of the Project GreenED program.
“Since the average use of a computer in the United States is two and a half years, many computers that still have a lot of potential collect dust or end up in a landfill,” he said. Reusing computers would help the environment by keeping them out of disposal sites.
With that in mind, Nicholas created Project GreenED’s “to gather laptops and desktops in good working condition and donate them to schools in developing countries that are less fortunate than we are.”
Nicholas chose Brazil not only because he was born there, and moved to the U.S. 11 years ago, but he remembers his grandmother telling him about some abysmal educational conditions there.
He said the GreenED team’ cleans, formats (if needed), and installs Edubuntu, an educational version of Linux. The 50 computers that are already fixed will be going to schools in Brazil that Nicholas hand-picked after doing extensive research.
“Looking further in the future, we hope to eventually expand this project to other schools in Latin America.,” he said.
Not every computer donated to the cause can be used. Those that can’t be fixed will be used as part for others.
Nicholas founded Project GreenED with the help of Dr. John Hardman, Ph.D, senior advisor at FAU High, and his friends. He is also president.
Others involved are:
Nicholas Mejia: vice president/technology assistant. He helps fix the electronic devices and puts in required software.
Rachael Kelly, who markets and promotes the project in the community.
Laureen Meroueh (who is also now at UF), marketing and promoting.
Ricardo Peralta Jr.: technology assistant/website. Ricardo keeps the website up and running, updating it when necessary and making sure that it does not run into any problems. He also installs and formats the computers and laptops.
Nicholas said the Project GreenEd team “believes that not having computers in the classroom prevents students from gathering knowledge through the World Wide Web.”
In addition, he said, “We strongly believe in recycling, which saves natural resources and reduces the impact on the Earth. Since it takes a great deal of resources and energy to build new computers, recycling and reusing are one of the main driving points behind the idea of Project GreenED.