FAQ

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faq
  1. What does Labdoo stand for?
    Labdoo stands for Laboratories for Education; the name is also related to the concept of “building Laboratories for Education one location at a time.” It stands for the idea that everyone can make a difference in a child’s education.
  2. What’s the premise of the Labdoo project?
    Labdoo is unique in that we’re a grassroots, collaborative community of volunteers from around the globe each contributing in their own part in bringing education closer to a child. It is based upon the simple idea that a large project can be simplified and made sustainable by dividing it into smaller tasks. You don’t need every person to be in the same location or need each person to have all the know-how in order to get a laptop successfully refurbished and sent to a child.
    Labdoo is able to provide the logistical resources to help organize this wide network of laptops and volunteers through social networking tools and through the implementation of concepts such as "dootronic", “tagging”, “dootrip”, "hubs", "edoovillages", etc.
  3. What is a 'dootronic'?
    "Dootronic" stands for Labdoo Electronic and is defined as any electronic device capable of delivering education to a child. It could be a laptop, a tablet, an ebook, or even a powerful smartphone, as any of these devices can have a tremendous capability of bringing educational content to children. Some people call them 'donated devices', others call them 'educational devices'; it's really up to you, but as a general term, we use the word 'dootronic'.
  4. What is 'tagging'?
    "Tagging" is part of Labdoo’s solution to mobilize laptops. When you “tag” your laptop you’re simply registering it in Labdoo’s online inventory. In registering you’re only entering information about the laptop (e.g. memory, operating system, etc.). In the event there is a call for dootronics we can notify individuals who’ve tagged their laptops to see if they wish to donate them. Tagging is a key component of the Labdoo workflow because it enables transparency and allows us to efficiently organize information, which helps cut the cost of the project down to practically zero. Thanks to this and other pieces of the system, Labdoo requires no funding to sustain itself. (See this wiki entry for more detail on this concept.)
  5. I’m not quite ready to donate this laptop, should I still tag it?
    Yes! Tagging in itself does not imply that you’re donating your laptop now or at any point. It’s simply making you and your laptop become part of the overall Labdoo network, expressing that when you no longer need to use that laptop, you'd like a child from some needy school to use it and gain access to educational content.
  6. How do you tag a laptop?
    • Go to labdoo.org and create a user account if you have not already.
    • Once you are logged into your account, click on the menu tab "dootronics" and then on "Tag", this will bring you to a form to fill in.
    • Enter as much information about the laptop as you can (while most of the fields are optional, the more information you provide, the smarter the decisions we make will be in terms of assigning a laptop to a school project). Click Save, you will receive a 9 digit tag number.
    • You have successfully tagged your laptop!
  7. How can I be sure that all the information on my computer is properly erased?
    Labdooers around the globe who take charge of sanitizing a laptop (people like you actually) go through a full erasing of the hard drive when refurbishing the computer. When installing the new operating system and a very powerful education software package, a process called shredding randomly writes zeros and ones to the hard drive to make sure all the data that was previously on the hard drive is gone forever.
  8. How do you decide where the laptops are sent?
    Labdoo delivers education devices (dootronics) to hundreds of schools around the world. We search for and have been sought out by organizations with education projects that meet Labdoo's goals. As part of the Labdoo network, you can even create your own school destination projects too. By the way, we call them "edoovillages".
  9. How long does it take for a laptop to be delivered to a school?
    The answer to this question really depends on many factors, such as the demand for laptops, the availability of travelers in your area going to a Labdoo school, and the availability of volunteer time to sanitize your laptop and make it ready for traveling. In some cases, it can be quite quick, even just a couple of weeks; but in other cases it can take months. Keep in mind that Labdoo is a global project that moves laptops around the world at no cost, thanks to the collaboration of many people, so sometimes you may need to be patient to see some progress. In any case, please do check from time to time the status of your donation and contact Labdoo if you see that no progress has been made for a while.
  10. How do you ship laptops to their locations?
    For that, we use "dootrips" (or Labdoo trips). A dootrip is essentially a CO2-neutral transportation means used to carry laptops from one location to another. Examples of dootrips are trips carried out by tourists, NGO volunteers (doctors and engineers without borders, humanitarian personnel, etc.), international students, employees of international corporations, etc. Through the Labdoo social network, people and organizations that travel can register their trip and donate a CO2-neutral transportation resource to bring one or more laptops to schools in need. This approach costs no money and more importantly, it preserves planet Earth.
  11. What is a Labdoo hub?
    Everybody can be a participant in the Labdoo network by performing a Labdoo activity. When one or more of the participants act together regularly carrying out a good number of activities, they can optionally become a hub. A hub can be understood as a node in the network which carries out a “larger density of Labdoo activities”. An example of a hub could be a group of university students who get together from time to time to carry out activities such as collecting and sanitizing unused laptops, organizing dootrips, recycling technology, carrying out outreaching activities, etc. Hubs can also be implemented in high schools, companies, neighbor communities, at home or in any type of organized community.
  12. What do you do with the laptops once they’re donated to a Labdoo hub?
    Donated laptops are checked out to see if they are still in a useable condition or ready to be recycled. If they are still useable, we’ll tag them —if they have not been already—, and then we'll refurbish them (i.e. clean them, clear the hard drive, and install Edubuntu, a simple but powerful Linux based operating system with lots of education applications and available in practically all languages).
  13. What do you do with donated laptops that are broken?
    Short answer: We recycle them. Long answer: We look for partners with a recycling facility who can guarantee that the broken laptop will be recycled safely. Electronic waste is a huge problem, and one of Labdoo's goals is to help efficiently solve this problem by going through proper recycling facilities.
  14. What do you do with laptops that break down while being deployed in their respective locations?
    A laptop that breaks down while being deployed can be reported through the main website, labdoo.org. From there we can inform volunteers or partnering groups that work or are traveling through the area to pick up the laptop and bring it to a proper recycling facility.
  15. I’m ready to donate my laptop, where can I drop it off?
    You have several options. If you or someone you know are traveling to a location near a destination school, you can consider bringing it yourself all the way to the school. Otherwise, you can also take it to your closest Labdoo hub. People in the hub will then take care of identifying a dootrip to bring the laptop to a school.
  16. What happens with projects that don’t have access to internet?
    All the laptops we send off get installed a copy of Edubuntu which is an educational software based in the Ubuntu Linux Operating System. This software provides educational games, computer typing development and an introduction to technology to students abroad. In addition to Edubuntu, we are also supply them with a stripped-down version of Wikipedia through a burned CD and with many more educational applications and electronic books so that children can have access to them without the need of Internet.
  17. Can I still contribute even if I don’t know much about computers?
    Yes! In fact, knowledge about computers is only a very small portion of the Labdoo project. So come and join the Labdoo mission by registering and/or contacting us at contact@labdoo.org.
  18. How can I get updates about Labdoo?
    You can find updated information about Labdoo by going to the website https://www.labdoo.org. Also, when you tag your laptop, you receive a Labdoo ID, and you're asked to provide your e-mail address, where you will receive automatic notifications of the status of your donated laptops and pictures of them as they make progress to a school.
  19. This FAQ was nice but it is hasn't answered all my questions.
    Labdoo is powered by a rich Wiki system where most of your questions should be answered. The wiki can be accessed via this link. If that is not enough, you can also go to the Labdoo teams page and directly post a question in any of the teams' walls. A labdooer will provide an answer. You can also directly send an email with your questions or comments by writing to contact@labdoo.org, the Labdoo team does its best to try to answer all the questions.