By Roz Weis,
A Decorah High School junior has taken his passion for rebuilding computers and started a new program to help put technology into the hands of fellow students.
Jack Sovern, a 16-year-old junior at DHS, said he noticed some of his family members owned laptops that were gathering dust. He said he eventually came up with an idea to put them in the hands people who could use them – his classmates.
Sovern, the son of Eric Sovern and Shannon Horton of Decorah, is advocating for digital inclusion in the community by his initiative he calls “Laptops Without Borders.”
He shared, “Having grown up surrounded by technology, I believe in equal access to the internet, a sentiment shared by the United Nations in 2016 when it recognized internet access as a human right.”
Sovern continued, “While many in our town take this right for granted, some, especially recent immigrants, face barriers, particularly during the summer when school-provided computers become unavailable. To bridge this digital divide, I launched a project to refurbish old, unused laptops.”
Full article available in the May 9 Public Opinion newspaper.
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