Media Kit/Background

In April of 2000 Oso Martin was struggling to get his computer reuse and recycling idea off the ground. IHis garage was becoming cluttered with stuff, and it looked grim. All that changed when he met Richard Seymour and Laurel * at an Earth Day event he attended later that month. They provided new energy to a great idea and soon after a grant of $40,000 got them on their way. With one full time employee and a handful of volunteers they occupied a 2000 square foot storefront in SE Portland and began taking donations of unwanted technology and, where possible, fixed it up into usable computer systems that would go to people and organizations who had no access to computers. They needed a way to provide usability on lower end systems, while also being cheap. For this they used the GNU/Linux operating system and programs. This software suite was not just cheap, it was free, and it had many great programs anyone could take advantage of.