Jewish tech leader and Saracens deliver more than 3,000 laptops to young people

A Jewish technology leader has teamed up with Saracens rugby club, to provide more than 3,000 laptops to young people working at home during the pandemic.

The project was devised after research showed that almost 2 million children across the UK didn’t have adequate access to a device to work on while being educated at home in the second lockdown.

Featuring Saracens and England rugby star Maro Itoje, the The Digital Divide campaign has provided students with laptops through a partnership with the club’s foundation, Bloomberg, and technology partner WWCS, which is run by Jewish CEO Marc Lester.

The campaign is has so far donated, cleaned and distributed 3124 laptops since the beginning of this year, with an average of 50 handed out per day.

Lester, who is based near Brent Cross, transformed his firm’s office space into a production line for device testing, wiping and cleaning.

“This is such an important cause, and WWCS is perfectly placed to help Saracens make such a difference here. It’s great to be able to help can give to children access to digital learning at home” he said.

After schools reopened on 8 March, the company wanted to help “level the playing field” to ensure young people can continue their education.

“At a time when the IT industry has thrived, due to the huge increase in remote working, it is only right that we should be giving back in some way and this seemed like the ideal opportunity to get involved”, he said.