By Jeisson\u00a0Valderrama, Javier Ramirez, Sehal Dhongde,\u00a0Kuenzang\u00a0Choden, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 2020 has been one of the most challenging years in the recent\nhistory of humankind, but also this crisis has also been the engine of the\ndevelopment of new technologies in different fields. Education was one of the\nmore affected sectors by Covid19 with its major impacts on people living in\nremote rural areas, especially in developing countries with low access to\ninternet and electronic devices to take virtual classes. So, because of the\npandemic the whole system was moved to Online from Offline overnight. Even\nthough the urban educational setups did not face many problems but for most of\nthe rural schools and universities, this was a very new concept. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Latin America for example, more than 160 million of childrens\nwere affected during the lockdown, where\nmost of them did not have the telephones to contact and devices (like laptops,\nmobile or tablets) to study remotely. Also, their families were not prepared to\nteach these students due their work responsibility or lack of education which\nled to domestic violence in many homes. They had to walk for hours to go to\ntheir relatives or friends to study, and some would collect books and materials\nfrom house to house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dahiana Calderon, is a Colombian student who lives in a small town 3\nhours away from Bogota the capital of Colombia. she was one of the over four\nmillion students affected by the crisis of COVID-19 in that country. When the\nclasses became virtual, she had to resort to using her mother’s mobile phone to\nreceive the study guides by WhatsApp, even Dahiana had to alternate the use of\nthe device with her brother Juan David. They are only an example to what extent\nthe emergencies affect the most vulnerable social groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A Big problem as part of the solution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the\nE-Waste (Electronic) has increased dramatically in the last decade and millions of electronic devices are ending in\nthe landfill every year. Likewise, economies never stop growing, such as the\nproduction of electronic devices keeps increasing. Therefore, many entities and governments are working\ntowards the creation of systems and programs where \u201cReverse Logistics\u201d can be\napplied and they are adding a new stage in the circular vision for electronics.\nAs PACE (Platform for accelerating the circular economy) argues, the Life\nExtension of electronics is crucial in the product life cycle where products\nmight have a second or even a third life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although it is hard to believe in the Life extension of electronics,\nthis is totally logical from the perspective of giving the chance to cope with\nmany problems simultaneously. It not only helps with the carbon emission\nmitigation by reducing them but also reusing the E-waste to help vulnerable\npeople to provide access to education and relevant information during\nemergencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How Universities may help<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking advantage of the large amount electronic devices that are not\nbeing recycled correctly, universities can play a very vital role in giving a\nsecond life to thousands of devices such as computers, tablets and phones. This\ncan be done by using the infrastructure, equipment, resources and human capital\navailable in these universities. In this way, they can contribute in combating\nthe shortage of the devices in the educational setups as well as lack of\nknowledge about online platforms as method of teaching and usage of the devices\namong the teaching staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Small campaigns can be started in the universities to create\nawareness in the communities and societies to donate their old or unused\nphones. These phones can be collected in the university itself and then with the\nhelp of reverse logistics these devices can be recycled and reused. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n For this recycling and fixing method, the university students\n(majoring in IT and Electronics engineering) and faculties can come together\nand work on it. This could be given to students as a project which will not be\na waste of time for them and also benefit them by practicing their theoretical\nlearning, once these devices are collected and repaired by the university\nstudents as they have enough resources and knowledge, these devices can be then\npacked and distributed among the rural students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitely 2020 was a tough year for everyone and several\nindustries, communities and organisations have been affected. However, this\ncrisis is also the opportunity to adapt and evolve as a humankind and as\nuniversity students we play a very important role to help to build a better\nworld. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 29.01.2021 We continue with our blog series including 5 articles presenting the results of the science competition organised by the Global Business School Network and the HUMLOG Institute at Hanken […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":370,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2021\/01\/QUT_pic-1024x795.jpg\")
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