Ricardo: You could buy some computers, video games machines or peripherals from eBay UK, import and sell them

There are loads of very old, very cheap computers, laptops, video games machines and peripherals (like joysticks, CD/DVD ROM drives, cables, etc) on eBay UK, the online auction site. If you have a friend, relative, internet-contact or a friend-of-a-friend in the UK to buy things and send them to you, you might be able to sell them at a profit. You could buy complete machines or peripherals or buy parts and assemble some computers for sale.

If you go to http://www.ebay.co.uk/ and search for 'laptop', for example, you'll see there are loads of old machines. A really old cheap one from 1995 would still be capable of running Windows 95 and accessing the internet or running word-processors, some video games, etc. Local schools, university students or businessmen might buy computers from you.

Some people sell things by auction and wait a few days for bids, but you can also select ‘buy it now’ on the left, to see prices for things that you can buy immediately. You can set price limits and select new or used items.

To send it from the UK to where you are, the Royal Mail service is about the cheapest. Go to http://www.royalmail.com/ and click 'delivery services', then 'overseas', 'surface mail', 'prices'. As an example, someone could send a 3KG laptop to you for about £16 (32 US dollars or 2160 Kenyan Shillings). 1 British Pound = 2 US Dollars = 135 Kenyan Shillings at the moment. The website has pages about customs stickers to fill in (CN 22 for goods less than £270 and CN 23 for goods over £270). See page http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=400037&mediaId=43200687

You could look at what price things sell for in your area, the city centre or nearby towns and what would make a profit. Laptops, PDAs, MP3 players, media players for MP4 video, older 1 megapixel digital cameras, video games machines (like Playstation 1/psone or Nintendo Gameboy), peripherals or stacks of 50 blank CD/DVDs, cables, connectors, etc, may sell the best or make the most profit. Just have a look around the eBay categories. Light-weight things would of course have the lowest shipping costs. You would have to check on the internet whether you have to pay any import duty in Kenya.

Note that a lot of USB Flash Drives on eBay are fake or don't work or report more memory capacity then they really have, so I wouldn't buy those from eBay.

You could also send things to a friend in the UK for sale on eBay, but if you sell a lot, it would be taxed as a business. Check the eBay help files for what types of things you can and can’t sell. I think there’s also a list somewhere on the site of which sorts of item are most popular each month and sell well.

When people and businesses import things to the UK, they may have to pay import duty (different rates for different types of goods) and Value Added Tax (at various rates up to 17.5%). It's collected by the postman. -

see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ and

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_001454&propertyType=document

There are eBay sites for a lot of other countries as well. There's a list at the bottom of the http://www.ebay.co.uk page.

Social Agriculture, March 23, 2007 KenOwino: I feel as though, Nafsi afrika acrobats,the local community populace are headed to benefiting from the idea of assembling and selling computer parts, the prospects seems feasible, as it comes in at the most ideal time. I will research online for the parts that would be convinient for this purpose.

April 30, 2007, Social Agriculture Regarding the businness idea, i think it's so thoughtful and feasible- after taking much time researching. I would though like to know the purchasing price there, and how much it would cost to ship the Flash drives and computer parts. This will help me establish the price range we would set for a completely assembled/refurbished set. I was of the opinion also to start with some few here to test the market potential and to think on what we can do. I'm really excited to see this idea develop into some project that would go a long way making Nafsi Afrika acrobats a sustainable outfit- i have always worked hard to support this notion.

FredObala:Mendenyo Mar 27, 2007 Hi all, The chatting was interesting i can read: I was reading The idea of reducing the cost of importing technology all the time from over by trying to provide practicle alternatives like may be Assemblying computers from your own local Country like kenya and ofcourse it sound great to me guys. I have started an NGO call Uganda Millenium Communities for Intergrated Development (UMCID) with the vission of a semblying computers from Uganda too with not time not anyway bse i look at many communities getting donation on computers but they have failed to meet the shipping cost as many donors do leave that with the communities. i came with this idea buy trying to bring most of the Uganda CBOs searching for help online to come together fight for this common cause. TomOchuka:April 30, 2007 Learning From Each Other We are still in dire nee of computers as assembling them here is too better off.

Sources For Parts

Trashware at Wikipedia. The word trashware originated in Italy, see the Italian wikipedia article. TrashWiki. Groups in Italy. Trashware is rightware for cash-strapped organizations by Marco Fioretti (email given).

Build your own cheap computer

http://www.tigerdirect.com

Thank you to LucasGonzalez for noting The $72 PC which may provide some inspiration and ideas where to find parts.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org

Information about vintage computers

If you can get some time on a fairly fast internet connection, there are videos on how to build a PC on eHow.com and YouTube.com. Just search for ‘build pc’, 'building computer', etc.

http://www.ehow.com/Search.aspx?s=build+pc&Options=

http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=build+computer

eBay online auction sites in other countries.

Here's an example from the UK :-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/ Do a search for laptop, etc.

http://computers.ebay.co.uk/ This is the 'computers' category.

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump1?catId=400023&mediaId=400033 Royal Mail to send parcels from the UK. For example, about £16, $32 or 2160 Kenyan Shillings for a 3KG laptop.

Partners and Funders

RobertLusiba of June 15, 2007, Global Villages

Markus: and some are community based :: i knoew one ine th phoenix centre :: in wales :: where I levedin Town Hill that was funded by the PRINCES TRUST :: part of Prince Charles charity work. the young peoepl were trained in computer skilsl and given qualifications

AndriusKulikauskas: I haven't found any projects except there is the trashware community in Italy but basically there are many people in the US who assemlbe their own computers it's not very hard :: they just click together

Some suggestions for earning money for your project

If you take a look at the KnowledgeWork page, "More ways to earn extra money via the internet" section, you'll find some suggestions that I've written for ways that your group might earn some money for yourselves, to buy some computers and to fund any other projects. When you eventually get some computers, you may also be interested in the first section, "Income from Small Computer-Related Tasks".

They are ideas that I've been working on, but they haven't been tried out anywhere yet. Your group could be the first. You could also mix and match a few ideas to come up with some schemes of your own. I can give you some help by email, if you like. If they work where you are, then maybe other people can use them.

If you want to chat about any of the ideas, please send me an email

Ricardo [email protected]

ICT Training

ICTTraining

Ricardo [email protected]

Thanks Ricardo for your thinking My thinking about ICT trainning is that we can have individuals trained here and then they train the groups.

AboutThisPage

• PageType=Endeavor
• EndeavorLeader=KenOwino
• EndeavorTeam=Ricardo, FredKayiwa, FredObala, RobertLusiba, AndriusKulikauskas, SashaMrkailo
• EndeavorSummary=Assembling computers in Africa in an optimal way so that our participants might all have them, learn relevant skills and earn income.
• FlashDriveEditor = We support the development of skills for assembling computers.
• KnowledgeWork=Assemble computers for sale from local and global parts
• KnowledgeWorkTeam=KennedyOwino, Ricardo, FredKayiwa, FredObala, RobertLusiba, AndriusKulikauskas, SashaMrkailo
• PageByRicardo=Assemble computers for sale from local and global parts.