Education and Skill Development through the Reconfiguration of Discarded Hardware: Turning Base Metal into intellectual Capital

This paper examines an intervention in Europe which enables untypical individuals to acquire skills and competences in order to enter IT related employment. To do this they need to acquire a threshold level of intellectual capital so that they are considered sufficiently competent to gain employment. This can therefore provide the industry with a solid foundation of the necessary support staff, capable of providing services to the local community supporting such educational initiatives. This initiative can then release the more conventionally educated to work at the cutting edge of industry. As a driver for wealth generation in India, the IT industry is remarkable. It demands a wide spectrum of intellectual capital. As diffusion of IT technology is predicted to pervade throughout the subcontinent, the demand for all levels of competence would seem to be buoyant. The training environment covered in this case study complements the traditional educational system and could furnish alternative career opportunities to certain sections of the community.

This paper takes a strategic view throughout. The fallacy of composition has to be taken seriously. What is true for a part is not true of the whole. To place this in the context of this paper; whilst a workshop to help unemployed people build computers in Sheffield may work, it is not necessarily appropriate to draw the conclusions that it will be effective when implemented over the whole of the Indian Subcontinent.