“Only when people are able to use computers to produce their own data does information communication technology become genuinely empowering.” – James Wallbank

Furtherfield is committed to delivering on promise of the Zero Dollar Laptop manifesto with a series of workshop programmes with different community groupw. The Zero Dollar Laptop, is a recycled laptop running Free Open Source Software (FOSS) that is fast and effective- now and long into the future; repurposing otherwise redundant technology, gathering dust in bedrooms and offices across the country.

Pilot workshops with the clients of St. Mungo’s Charity for Homeless People ran for twelve weeks in 2010, where participants learned about using their laptop from core of installing their own operating system to customising their own machines, writing articles and creating images  to share and publish via social media. Download the full report pdf here.

The next steps are to implement the Zero Dollar Laptop at a European scale in coordination with European media labs. The initiative is gaining momentum, with interest from Budapest, Nantes, Madrid, and Brussels Visit the Zero Dollar Laptop Blog here. 

The project is part of Furtherfield’s Media Art Ecologies programme.