Firm repurposes laptops for community service

By John Minnis Legal News When Grosse Pointe Rotarian S. Lee Johnson, a partner at Honigman, Miller, Schwartz, and Cohn LLP, learned his firm was replacing 200 outdated laptops, he thought there had to be someone who could use them. "It turns out," he said, "as a firm, we were looking for a disposition of the computers. I was selected to be the disposition coordinator." First, however, all the data had to be carefully removed. "Because we are attorneys," Johnson said, "the computers had all kinds of confidential information on them." Honigman's IT people spent 100 hours scrubbing the data -- and removing the licensed applications. "As a business law firm with a vibrant IP practice," Johnson said, "we didn't want to give out software that was not fully licensed." Once the computers were scrubbed clean, they required an operating system to make them useable. Johnson chose Ubuntu, a free, open-source, Linux-based operating system developed by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. "Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "humanity towards others" or "the universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity." Also, open-source applications for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, as well as the free Mozilla Firefox web browser needed to be installed to make the laptops useful. That is where Rotarians got involved. Johnson sought volunteers from his fellow members of Rotary of Grosse Pointe. Armed with CDs, the volunteers installed and tested the operating system and shareware on the laptops, which came equipped with wifi cards. While a dozen of the repurposed laptops went to schools in Sierra Leone and Ghana, most were donated to local organizations -- The Dominican Literacy Center, Pro-Literacy Detroit, Golightly Career and Technical Center, Siena Literacy Center and Crossroads of Michigan. Half of the laptops went to Matrix Human Services in Detroit. Matrix provides many social services, including tutoring and computer training. "I was at your annual meeting and heard you have a need for these," Johnson told Matrix President and CEO Marcella Wilson when delivering the 100 laptops. "I have to tell you," Wilson said, "a gift like this changes lives. Once we teach people how to use computers and how to use the Internet, it opens a whole new world to them." Scott Gifford, vice president of community development, said Matrix has been providing computer training for 15 years and has a waiting list of 300. "It empowers people in their homes," he said of computer use. "We are eager to learn what useful and creative uses you have for them," Johnson said. "This is awesome," Wilson concluded. "This is better than money. I want to say thank you to the people at Honigman, Miller, Schwartz, and Cohn." Published: Tue, Dec 18, 2012

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