STEAMcycle: Providing digital access to under resourced communities in the Bay Area

Vision

STEAMCycle's long term vision is to enable a technologically self-sustainable Silicon Valley community in a way that members equipped with technical resources share them with members who do not have that privilege, with the explicit goal of empowering them to learn and use Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) skills to become contributing citizens of an uplifted community as a whole.

What we do

Working towards our vision, we connect community members with local nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area to up-cycle their unused and old tech devices to support under-resourced students by providing them access to digital learning platforms and online educational resources.

The non-profit for 2021 and 2022 is Streetcode Academy, which was awarded the 2021 California nonprofit of the year.

How we operate

STEP 1 : DONORS DONATE DEVICES
Sign up to donate your old and unused laptops and/or notebooks (e.g. Chromebook), desktop computers.*

STEP 2 : VOLUNTEER PICK-UP + SERVICING
Palo Alto Shapers will coordinate with you to pick-up your device(s) over email/phone and pick up on the day you selected (Sat/Sun) at a mutually agreed time.

STEP 3 : DISTRIBUTION + RECEIPT
Palo Alto Shapers will hand-off your device to the non-profit. Once your device has been received by the non-profit, you will get an email from steamcycle@paloaltoshapers.com to confirm receipt

*Note:
Streetcode Academy is able to delete data and format your device(s) appropriately. However, if you are comfortable with the idea of resetting your device by yourself,
please refer to this Youtube playlist consisting of instructions for resetting Windows/Mac/Linux computers - even if you lost your password and are unable to access your computer.

Contact

If you have any further questions or want to get involved in this project, please email steamcycle@paloaltoshapers.com