The Restart Project is a London-based social enterprise and charity aiming at changing our relationship with information technologies by empowering people to repair and reuse their electronic devices. It was started nine months ago by Janet Gunter and Ugo Vallauri.
The Restart Project’s vision is one based on collaboration and creativity – combining online knowledge sharing and cooperation with tangible activities in real life. One of the main such activity have been ‘Restart Parties’, community repair events, where all kinds of electronics are taken apart and repaired by owners together with volunteer repairers (Restarters). The aim is to promote increased lifespan, share repair skills and promote sustainable and informed consumption of information technologies.
To find out when and where the next Restart Party will happen, check out the events page.
Becoming a Restarter
At the end of last year, I turned up at a Restart Party and joined other volunteers to become a Restarter.
The Restart Project has been generating lots of interest and below are my contributions to two interviews, one in English and one in French, about it. Follow the links to read the articles in full.
Janet contributed Could you become a Restarter to the RSA's Great Recovery blog:
[...] We owe all of our momentum to our Restarters, a fun yet serious group. We would like to take a moment to introduce two of our committed repairers, and share their approach to repair. [...]
David, an east Londoner who has a background in tech and telecommunications, and is a privacy and civil liberties activist, writes
“The skills needed for most repairs are: a lot of common sense, some limited experience (acquired at a Restart Party), good research skills and access to a few tools. For example, if you can deal with a blown fuse, you have some understanding of continuity and if you have ever touched a lit light bulb, you understand that current generates heat. So when a device stops working, first steps are to check that everything is still connected, that electricity flows, and that there’s no dust or crumbs blocking any fan (an air duster often comes handy). For how to open a device such as a laptop or a mobile phone, that’s where the research skills comes in handy as it is likely already documented somewhere on a web page or a video. Experience will be useful to realise how hard to pull on a part to pry it open while being careful to avoid ripping out a hidden connector, or that using an egg carton to store screws in the order of each step helps to find them again when time comes to reassemble things.”
Both believe in the empowering and transformative aspect of repair. [...]
And David says:
“For more than twenty years I’ve been communicating to demystify new technologies and software development, initially – and how to reclaim our civil liberties, later. What attendees get out of the Restart Parties should be much more than a repaired product: a willingness to fix their electronic products in the future and some basic repair skills. The Restart Parties are an occasion for collaborative repairing, where there are no geniuses, just more experienced Restarters (and hopefully soon to be Restarters). It is for this transformative process, when attendees realise that many repairs are accessible to them, that I am involved in Restart. The confidence gained at the Restart Parties by some attendees to start fixing things on their own is the most rewarding part of the experience.”
If you are reading this, perhaps you have a skill worth sharing: maybe you know how to make a slow PC faster again. Or you know how to clean a printer, or how to extend the battery life of a smartphone. Perhaps you are a professional repairer or a tinkerer, and you can teach us more. If you’d like to get involved, please contact us on our website or on Meetup.com.
Béatrice Debut wrote Halte au gaspillage: des ateliers londoniens pour les nuls en électronique for the AFP:
Ordinateur poussif, bouilloire défectueuse, lecteur MP3 en rade: plus besoin de s'arracher les cheveux pour les réparer ou de se précipiter au magasin pour les remplacer. A Londres, les novices peuvent apprendre gratuitement à prolonger la vie de leurs appareils, une alternative à la société de consommation en période de crise économique et écologique.
Lyn Turner, bonnet bleu enfoncé sur la tête et chien en laisse, est frustrée. Cette quinquagénaire ne peut plus écouter ses programmes favoris: sa petite radio est en panne.
"Je serais surprise si vous parveniez à la réparer", lance-t-elle, en la confiant à l'un des bénévoles férus de technologies de l'organisation "Restart Project" ("Projet redémarrer").
Ce samedi, l'atelier a élu domicile dans une boutique vide-greniers de North Cheam, une banlieue modeste du sud de Londres. David Mery, barbe poivre et sel soignée, tout de noir vêtu, vérifie d'abord les piles, sous l'oeil attentif de Lyn. Bingo. Une pile a coulé. Il la remplace et la radio se remet à crépiter. "1305, c'est ma fréquence préférée", explique Lyn à David qui s'exécute.
"La prochaine fois, vérifiez les piles, et si vous n'utilisez pas votre radio pendant longtemps, mettez-les dans un tiroir", conseille David, 47 ans. Lyn acquiesce. [...]
Les ateliers, organisés deux fois par mois à Londres, visent à "démystifier la réparation" pour que "la personne ait confiance de se lancer elle-même la prochaine fois", explique David, ancien journaliste. [...]