In 2015, a senior executive of Siemens Canada, Philip Schaus, conceived of the more financially economic means of disposal, by donating lightly used laptops from Siemens to various charities.  At the same time, it allowed him to achieve his dream of allowing people of all economic means, access to this global way of communicating.  To this end, he created CFCC or C4CC (Corporations for Community Connections).  

 

The Rotary Club of Brampton was brought into this program because of its desire to help with Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.  There were many strong connections between this and Philip's dream with C4CC.

 

The plan was simple.  We provided volunteers to add to Siemens volunteers to attend a final workshop for packaging of the computers.  The machines had been tested by Siemens for functionality prior to the workshop.  In this final stage, we cleaned, made a final test and packaged the machines for delivery. At this time, we arranged for a smudge ceremony by Indigenous drummers to further cleanse the machines.

 

Over two workshops in 2017 and 2018, we delivered 300 laptops through HIP connections to various Indigenous Communities across Canada, that had requested them.

 

The CFCC program continues to provide laptops to students in need.  The photo below shows remote laptop refurbishment taking place in April 2021.  The laptops were donated to FNTI, formerly known as the First Nations Technical Institute.  Read more.