It all ends here!

If DYPC would be a child, it would be in 1st class by now. I guess that’s the class kids are these days when they are 6.

DYPC was a brain child of Ankur Mehrotra who was pursuing his MBA then. It was one of his projects and as he told me later, his professor deemed the idea as completely impractical in Indian context since Indians hold white goods very dear to themselves and nobody would donate something as costly as a PC. I don’t know if words taste good or not because he definitely had to his words.

First draft of DYPC logo.

Another version of DYPC logo.

DYPC Current Logo

The success of DYPC was wholly dependent on the willingness of people to accept the idea of donation of their old computers for charity. And the list of open donation offers on the site at this moment (25 as on 28th November 2014) is a testament to the fact that they did! My heartfelt thanks to each and everyone of the hundreds of donors who trusted us. Specially the folks from Bangalore. Give yourselves some pats on the back. You guys put the D in DYPC.

Over to the other side: Requests.

From Manipur to Gujarat. From Tamilnadu to Kashmir. From towns so small that I had to search on the map to know which state they belong to. From metros. Requests thronged us. It’s heartening to know that India is trying to keep the pace with rest of the world. It’s saddening that we could help only the organizations in metros where the donations were located. Thank you guys for being there and trying to make a difference to society.

Some of DYPC site banners

Earth week Banner

Everyone who helped us by spreading the word. Friends in media who wrote about us, bloggers who posted about us, all of you who tweeted (and retweeted) about us or liked and shared our Facebook posts. Thank You so much.

It would not have been possible without your support.

And now we are leaving. May be we will be back one day. Keep us in your memories. Good Bye.

DYPC gets featured on NDTVGadgets.com

As the problem of electronic waste mounts, both the problem and solution are getting serious media attention.

And so no surprises that DYPC got featured in this story on NDTV Gadgets about e-waste.

 

 

 

Thanks to NDTV reporter Rohan Swamy who approached me for interview and including DYPC in this story.

DYPC’s Android app is here!

Yes, after months of dithering finally our android app is now available in Google Play Store. All thanks to Ramakrishna for developing it!  And we tried to promote it too 🙂

You can download it from here. And we definitely welcome your feedback!

DYPC in Financial Chronicle

We got written about in a couple of papers and magazines but being featured in a business paper is a completely new feeling!

I had given an interview to Financial Chronicle for their story on eWaste and though my statements have been presented in a very weird manner, atleast our style of working has been reported quite accurately!

Below is the complete article:

and following is the excerpt that talks about us. Note that when it comes to donation of PCs, we are the only ones!

Thanks a lot to FC.

That’s a wow I say!

I guess recognition at home is something we all yearn for. I remember my dad chiding me for not joining Infosys when I told him I joined TCS. Then again he was disappointed when I told him that I am joining Oracle. After many years he has made peace with the fact that his son doesn’t share his dream regarding ‘dream companies’!

Why am I telling you all this? Because despite getting coverage in Bangalore and even Rajasthan, somehow we never got any love at home in Hyderabad. That drought finally got over this week when we got a mention in one of Hyderabad’s most well known lifestyle magazine: WOW Hyderabad. And on the editor’s page, no less!

Here is the clipping:

Thanks to Anisha for doing this interview and Ashish for spreading the word! We hope this coverage will help us in getting more visibility in Hyderabad.

The yearender post

It is THAT time of the year.  Any news site/portal you visit has lists of year’s top 10 best/worst/beautiful/ugly/ordinary/special/amazing/boring/people/places/animals/aliens/predators… well you get the idea, don’t you.

How do we make a list of best things that happened to us this year? Because for some things to be counted as ‘best’, some other have to be counted as ‘good’ or ‘better’ or even ‘not-so-good’ or downright ‘bad’.  I won’t say that nothing went bad for us this year. Even the world’s highest roller-coaster has to go down to reach the record-making highs. A major corporate house promised us a donation and then backed out after we had collected huge requests. If that ain’t bad, I don’t know what is. But then it is not time to count our failures, or so I feel.  Ofcourse some of you will say that year-end is the time when we take stock of our achievements and how can that stock be correct if all the losses were ignored.

But then each time there is a donation offer it gives a high that drowns out any disappointments. And thanks to our kind donors, we have had so many offers this year. Atleast now when any one asks me ‘kaisa chal raha hai tumhara DYPC’ I have a 3 digit number to flaunt as our successful donations. If that’s not a high, trust me, I don’t know what is.

This year we started a new trend of giving certificates to our donors. ‘Friend Of The Earth’ certificate is a very small attempt to thank our donors. This apart from mentions on Facebook and Twitter, which you might say and even I agree ‘is not a big deal’ but then it is ‘cool’ to give the credit where it is due!

This year we had our biggest corporate donation, which came from British Airways.  We got mention in DNA Bangalore edition and CHIP magazine. Thank you very much guys. We need lots of donations and words of mouth (and print!) to expand and to succeed.

Last but not the least, we changed our identity after quite some time. And thankfully everyone liked it.

There are many thoughts, dreams that we are going to carry over to next year. Hopefully in 2013 we will see some new dreams and won’t have to carry over the ones from coming year!

Have a very good new year. Cheers.

When recycling is not good enough!

I have often wondered how India’s tech savvy lot gets all worked up when the latest iPhone (or iPad) or Android model gets a delayed launch in the country. We remind these companies of our growing superpower status and booming economy and importance of Indian market and demand a status of equality.

Have we ever asked these companies about their recycling policy in India? Almost all the computer and electronics companies have ‘take-back’ programs in US and Europe where the customers can hand over their old product of the brand for recycling. But what about India? Apple doesn’t have a take-back policy for India whereas they started for US in April 2006. Samsung started it in March 2011 but surprisingly have kept it under wraps. Only Nokia has a good take-back program and they encouraged people to actually use it.

But even if all the e-waste gets recycled how good it would do to all of us? Take a look at the latest edition of  ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ published by Greenpeace.  As the page says: “This guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change”.  On a score of 0-10, 0 indicates worst and 10 indicates best.

Out of 18 companies, 10 score less than 5! Nintendo takes the dubious honor of scoring least with a pathetic score of 1.8. Don’t think that this makes any impact on the minds of those buying a Wii. Not very far from last spot is Microsoft with a measly 2 and though Apple joins them in below 5 club, Cupertino’s score is more than double of Redmond’s, a 4.9.

Other members of under 5 club: Toshiba, LG, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Acer, Sharp and Dell.

And now a fact which would have been funny, if it was not tragic. Out of the remaining 8 companies, 6 lie between 5 and 6! These ‘super 6’ are Philips, HP, Samsung, Motorola, Panasonic and Sony Electronics.

At no. 2 is Sony Ericsson with a score of 6.8. The guide says “It is the best performer on the toxic chemicals criteria of all the ranked brands, being the first to score full marks on all chemicals criteria”.  And at no. 1 is Nokia. They may not be at the top of mobile phones anymore but atleast they are on top of this ranking with a score of 7.5. But the guide says that Nokia ‘does least well on e-waste issues.’ So may be they need to do a bit more.

So let’s come back to original question. With devices full of harmful toxins, how good it would be even if these devices are recycled. What other alternative we have but that companies are made to take back their junk.

‘Chip’ping in! DYPC gets featured in Chip magazine

Talking of shot in arm, this came as a booster shot! Being featured in one of India’s most prestigious technology magazines is an honor and we at DYPC are thrilled and that is truly an understatement.

Thanks to Priyanka Tilve of Chip magazine who wrote this article on E-Waste and conducted interview with us.

The difference between DYPC donors and Apple Inc.

Well this is like comparing Apples with Oranges (pun intended!). Ofcourse Apple Inc. is a multi-billion dollar company which has to make profits for itself and its shareholders and DYPC donors are.. well just a group of people who donate the products made by Apple’s competitors to be reused!

But still I could not help making this comparison because this week Apple’s game changer tablet iPad was ‘launched’ in India! Well it is not a secret that in next 3 months, next generation iPad is going to be launched in USA, so many commentators have called it dumping its inventory in India.

So now I ask you, were you able to spot the difference between DYPC and Apple? DYPC donors donate their old products whereas Apple sells its old products in aspiring markets!

DYPC gets a DNA mapping!

DYPC got a healthy mention in a news article by DNA Bangalore on e-Waste management. Take a look!