My father raised a daughter

A GIRL

There is an elegant beauty in the structure of laptop troubleshooting and repair. Find the correct matching power adapter (in a “loose adapters” stack) with the correct voltage and amperage, power it up and wait for lights to flash on you (or not), turn on the device and wait. it works buzzing through BIOS checksums and hardware tests, and finally, seeing an operating system present itself to you onscreen.

At any point, the computer can start behaving badly – refusing to turn on or flirting with you by winking teasingly at you for a brief second or two, before spitting; the laptop might start blowing incessant angry beeps at you, a constant digital stream of profanity aimed at the person who dared to wake it from sleep; or the unit might suddenly freeze, or decide it was time to go into an auto-restart loop like it was rehearsing a bit with Bill Murray in “groundhog day”.

This is when the fun begins. Trying to diagnose what is wrong with the digital patient, if the patient can be fixed, and if you have the patience to decipher the cryptic clues as to what might be wrong with the patient. Software fixes are relatively easy if all the data is in the cloud and nothing needs to be saved. A complete reset or creating a new user account often fixes most problems.

Hardware fixes are more complicated. Is it a hard drive or RAM failure? Or did the Wi-Fi card fail? Maybe the ribbons or the connector fell off? It will be necessary to unscrew several things, to know if the assembly is well screwed or not. And if there is a non-articulated unit (as in, its hinge is broken), it is a job for the big guys: epoxy, tweezers and a night in the clinic to heal.

And when I’m stuck, it’s time for a request (and maybe a photo or two) to be sent to my friends: my tribe in a late-night community called the DPC Network which runs on caffeine, cats. and challenges, and who are always willing to offer advice on a suggested solution or two.

These are things I work with as I refurbish laptops donated to underprivileged children in the Computers against COVID (CAC), a grassroots initiative of a local Singapore non-profit organization, Engineering Good. The motto of our project: “As many laptops, to as many children, in as short a time as possible”.

I signed up with the intention of helping for two hours on a weekend.

It’s been over a year, 500 hard drives, 120 recipient partners, as well as 4000 laptops (and it’s not over).

It has been a weekend.

*****

MY FATHER

I have been here before.

It is 1995 and I am with my father, Lim Kin Chew, at his Activate 2000 project workshop at Mountbatten Road. Their goal: to collect donated personal computers, repair and refurbish them with Windows 95, and donate them to the underprivileged community. Customize them if necessary to ensure digital inclusion, for example setting the computer to display very large font sizes for people with low vision (poor vision), activating the text-to-speech feature where it was available, ensuring that touch input and responsive keyboards were being transmitted.

I have been here before.

There are of course differences, not the least that you could turn on your computer back then and go get a full kaya toast with kopi – and finish it – before the computer started! Also, these were monster machines to haul: a full CRT display, processor, keyboard, mouse, possibly a joystick, and a heavy wire clutch (and maybe a dot-matrix or inkjet printer). ) would be a one-time machine donation.

Yet while some things change, some things remain the same. The same computer repair principles my father taught me, along with a few helpful volunteer uncles at the repair center, remain fundamental.

The process is paramount: power everything on, wait for BIOS and hardware tests, be prepared for possible motherboard error beeps, and wait for the operating system to boot. Diagnose software and hardware problems and replace components when you have spare parts in the shop.

The ethics of the community have not changed either. In the same way that I now have the DPC Network to lean on for technical advice, the “Workshop Uncles” were the first weekend warriors you could lean towards for advice – or when a 15 year old klutzy was hovering over you, concerned about your grounding as you try to stifle a sneeze when replacing a RAM module on a dusty motherboard.

Aside from me, one of those workshop uncles unwittingly fulfilled both Activate 2000 and CAC projects together, Chong WM. Originally volunteering alongside my dad in the previous project, we found ourselves working side-by-side in the CAC project without knowing the connection until an idle chatter during laptop repair revealed our Activate 2000 link.

To tell this story well twice, I went back to the source and asked my father about his project.

It was called Activate 2000 because we wanted to make sure that everyone in Singapore is included in the new digital and internet age, my father explained. The year 2000 was on the way, and it was a good idea to aim for full digital inclusion if possible, as it marked the dawn of a new era for all.

We are now in 2021.

I think the goals of digital inclusion may have changed a bit. Are we there already? Not enough.

But I will continue.

*****

RAISED

There are no gender barriers when it comes to learning tech and repairing laptops. I thank God for my father’s foresight in this regard.

Thanks, Dad, for that first Wearnes computer with the 5 ″ 1/4 floppy drive, and for signing me up for kids’ computer lessons.

For the inexhaustible supply of computer books casually scattered around the house, corrupting young minds with non-sexist material and coding knowledge.

For this first Internet connection at 14.4 kbps on Lynx.

Most of all, for the heart and legacy of helping those in need, with enabling technologies.

May-Ann is Director for Asia at the research consultancy Access Partnership, and is concurrently Executive Director of the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA). She has extensive experience in public policy, technology policy development and communications with government relations throughout the Asia-Pacific region, and has worked with many global, regional and local organizations such as APEC, the ‘ASEAN, PECC, INTERPOL, WTO, ACCA and the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), on thought leadership development, government outreach and stakeholder engagement efforts, such as the Development of the ASEAN ICT Master Plan 2020.

She was appointed to the Singapore Data Protection Appeal Panel 2019-2023 and is an APNIC 52 member in 2021. She also sits on various working groups, such as the Digital ASEAN working group of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Data team & Jurisdiction for the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network, and was an executive member of the Singapore section of the Internet Society (ISOC). His career has spanned global, regional and local institutions including the World Bank, World Vision, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) and the Singapore Internet Project.

Singapore-based May-Ann also volunteers with Engineering Good, an NGO specializing in laptop technical repair and digital inclusion policy, and lectures on InfoComm’s policy at the Communications and New Media Department. from his alma mater, the National University of Singapore (US).

GovInsider and The Birthday Collective are collaborating to share a selection of essays from the 2021 edition of The Birthday Book: Are We There Yet?

The Birthday Book (which you can purchase here) is a collection of essays about Singapore written by 56 contributors from various backgrounds. These essays reflect where Singapore is today, where we’ve come from, and where we might go.