The Humanitarian Youth Preparation for Electronics Education (HYPE) student organization is an organization dedicated to expand access to online learning and encourage educational pursuits among young people. Recently, HYPE refurbished 50 computers, which they were able to give to the National Center for Urban Solutions (NCUS).

The project began with a donation of 50 Dell desktop computers in need of refurbishment from the Miami Regionals Middletown campus. This donation was facilitated by Brian Henebry (Assistant Vice President of Solution Delivery for Miami University IT Services) and Jacob Robinson (Regional Director of Technology Services for Miami Regionals.) A connection with Ohio State Senator Michele Reynolds helped establish NCUS as the recipient of the devices when refurbished. "We owe special thanks to Ohio State Senator, the Honorable Michele Reynolds, for facilitating our connection with NCUS," said Yong Lin, Ph.D., faculty advisor for HYPE and Assistant Teaching Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Miami’s College of Engineering and Computing. Dr. Lin shared that he was proud of the work the HYPE student members had done in support of NCUS and their work “advancing the workforce and well-being of the Black community.”

What is NCUS?

NCUS is a diversified social enterprise whose mission is to solve the needs of urban and underrepresented communities in a variety of aspects. NCUS works with communities in the areas of workforce, health, and education to be a resource for self-sufficiency among African American community members. NCUS is dedicated to creating a brighter and more equitable future for the groups they serve, with a focus on workforce development, education and health and wellness in urban communities. 

How did HYPE get involved in this project?

HYPE is a student organization which is part of the Socially Engaged Engineering and Computing (SEEC) program at Miami CEC, as well as CEC's Humanitarian Engineering and Computing minor. HYPE works in close collaboration with the Cincinnati non-profit Awaken Your Child Potential (co-founded by Dr. Lin) in order to facilitate the transfer of refurbished technology from Miami University to NCUS. 

What will be the impact of HYPE's work?

HYPE's refurbished computers will end up in NCUS-supported educational centers in the Columbus area and across Ohio. In this way, the computers will help to give more young people more opportunities to gain hands-on experience working with computers.

Anthonie L. Jackson, Sr., the Director of Information Technology for NCUS, spoke about the impact of HYPE's work when he and two of his colleagues came to Oxford to pick up the computers. Jackson said the donation "really enhances the classroom setting of our high school, and of the tech center that we use." Jackson went on to say that the newly refurbished devices will allow NCUS to create some new computer labs where NCUS Scholars and Participants "can come in and work on a modern device that's going to allow them to access everything they need to access" in pursuit of their educational goals.

What did HYPE members do?

Students in HYPE refurbished the 50 computers in a number of ways, including replacing hard disk drives with solid state drives for greater storage capacity and installing the Linux operating system. For many HYPE members, working on this project involved learning new technology skills not previously encountered. “I find it incredibly rewarding just to learn new things as a pre-med student," said Jake Mastrofski, a psychology and pre-med double major from Miami's College of Arts and Science. "It's not really my sort of thing to refurbish a computer. So it was really enjoyable to step outside my comfort zone. I enjoy helping others and I really enjoy the people in this club. It's been a great experience.” 

For those in HYPE who do have a lot of technical expertise in computers, the club offers new opportunities to learn in other ways. For example, CEC student Miles Pletcher, a computer science major, took on more of a marketing role for the club. “I'm the marketing person, and I've never done something like it before," he said. "It's way out of my wheelhouse because I'm in computer science, and I'm a finance minor, but this is something new. It's a really cool experience.”

For other CEC students, participating in the computer refurbishment project meant an expansion of the skills they're learning as part of their major. "Since I'm usually on the software side with programming, it's really cool to learn more about the hardware side and be able to work with hardware a bit too," said Alex Myron, a software engineering major. That way, he said, "I can kind of see both sides of computing."

HYPE President Dylan Fall said that, prior to joining the club, he didn't "know the first thing about refurbishing computers." And while the ETBD/Supply Chain and Operations Management double major has picked up a lot of new technical skills through this experience, it's his new learnings about leadership that have been particularly impactful. "It was a really cool experience for me because I learned that in order to be a good leader, you do not need to be an expert in the operations that you're presiding over. You just need to be able to lead a team, motivate them, find their strong suits, and match them with the work that is good for that."

Giving back, making a difference

Overall, this project has both expanded access to education in historically under-resourced communities and provided opportunities for Miami University students to gain hands-on experience while giving back. "The key thing is that the students can see and touch how they make a difference in the community,” said Dr. Lin. 

Beena Sukumaran, the Dinesh and Ila Paliwal Dean of the College of Engineering and Computing, was present for the final handoff of the refurbished computers to Anthonie Jackson, Sr. and his NCUS colleagues. “Socially engaged engineering and computing is all about helping humanity," said Dean Sukumaran. "This project lends itself to that: Using our technical expertise and refurbishing the computers and providing them to communities that need them.”