How to Get Rid of Second-Hand Smartphones
Would you donate your old Smartphone to charity
Adam Skikne
Latest posts by Adam Skikne (see all)
- How Africa Accesses Facebook on Mobile 2014 - September 17, 2014
- Snapchat’s Secret Sauce - July 31, 2014
- Getting the Most Out of Plex - July 30, 2014
by @adamskikne
A few weeks back, I wrote about The New Digital Age, a book that tries to predict what will happen as the world becomes increasingly connected. One of the predictions in the book is that 5 billion new people will connect to the Internet for the first time in the next decade. Most of these new Internet users will come from the third word and many will be connecting to the Internet for the first time through smartphones.
This shift is going to radically improve the lives of these 5 billion people. So… What are some of the ways to speed up this process?
It’s almost been two years since I bought my last phone which means that is almost time for me to upgrade. And while I’ve been going back and forward trying to decide between the latest offerings from Samsung and HTC, I’ve also been struggling with another decision: what to do with my old phone.
Besides needing a new battery (R600 on Amazon.com), my old HTC Sensation is still going strong. And since there is no second hand market for smartphones in South Africa, I’ll be lucky to get R1000 for a phone with a reasonable camera and that can run thousands of Android apps like Google Chrome, Google Maps, Wikipedia and Twitter.
I’m sure I could give my old phone to a family member or keep it as a spare, but I’m sure that my old smartphone could be doing more good. And while I’ve never seen anyone else with an HTC Sensation, I have seen plenty of other people rocking Samsung Galaxy SIIs or iPhone 4s who are in exactly the same position.
And that’s when it hit me. Why isn’t there a local corporate or NGO who has tried to encourage people to donate their old smartphones to charity? This would be a perfect initiative for local operators. I would gladly sign up to a new cellphone network if I could give them my old phone which would then go to a school or some other worthy organisation. If others need more of an incentive, they could easily be bribed with mobile data (5 Gigs seems fair), which would be a cost that could be easily absorbed by a cellphone network.
I really think that this would be a great way to do good and bring more South Africans onto the Internet. If given the option, wouldn’t you donate your old smartphone to charity?
Google+
Comments (0)