Hardware donation program

Abstract

Number of available laptops as of May 2026:
20
Next distributions:
Wikimania Paris and Language Diversity Conference

This page describes a hardware donation program which as of March 2026, is run by members of the Wikimedia Community, particularly Wiki Project Med Foundation.

Prior to July 2025 it was run by the Wikimedia Foundation. They; however, stopped until further notice, due to changes in the Foundation's IT practices.

We have secured used laptops for Wikimedia volunteers via low cost distributors. Partners include:

Both offer used machines at about 50 USD/30 pounds each to NGOs. Instructions on how Wikip/medians can apply are below.


About the program

Below are a set of distribution criteria and process for this program. This page describes who can receive donated laptops, and how.

Criteria

Requirements

To request a laptop, applicants (including applicants representing groups or affiliates) must satisfy the following criteria:

  • Applicant(s) must have a record of contribution to Wikimedia movement projects of no less than 1 year and no less than 1,000 contributions across all projects. This is meant to ensure we give laptops to people with some proven commitment to our mission. It is a necessary but not sufficient criterion, and no number of contributions will guarantee receiving an asset.
  • Applicants must agree to identify themselves to Wiki Project Med Foundation, and to sign a brief agreement stating the intended use of the laptop.
  • Applicant cannot be a citizen of Iran, or appear in the United States Treasury's blacklist ("Specially Designated Nationals"). This is unfortunately imposed on Wiki Project Med Foundation as a United States non-profit, and is not an internal decision.

Additional considerations

The following considerations will increase (but not guarantee) the likelihood of a laptop to the applicants:

  • Applicants have a history of working on health content.
  • Applicants from low-income countries. No individual proof of income is required or considered.
  • Applicants able to demonstrate accountable group ownership of hardware, e.g. a Wikimedia affiliate with adequate, public, and explicit procedures for determining allocation of hardware within the group.
  • Applicants with a successful record of putting Wikimedia Movement resources (e.g. grants, scholarships) to impactful use.

Process

Applying

Apply for a laptop by typing your exact username in the edit box and pressing the Request a laptop button below. Then fill out the simple on-wiki form.

Once submitted, your request may be endorsed by other volunteers, and feedback on the request may be posted on the request talk pages. However, feedback would not always be actively sought, and no particular time frame would be reserved for feedback before a decision would be made.

If the inputbox below doesn't work for you, create a page manually named Hardware donation program/YOUR_USERNAME (with your own user name instead of "YOUR_USERNAME"), and paste into it the entire contents of this page and save. Then you can edit the resulting page.

Once this page is created add a link to it under the "Updated as of May 1st 2026" heading below.


Decision-making

  • Members of Wiki Project Med Foundation (currently James Heilman) reviews requests as time permits, on a relaxed schedule (probably no more than once a month) and makes decisions. Initially those involved with health content will be given preference.
  • Requests may be declined or approved; in case of doubt, additional information may be requested from the applicant, and the request would be re-evaluated in the next evaluation cycle. The decisions are final, and may not be appealed.
  • If a request is deemed valid, feasibility will be assessed (how easy/convenient/even possible) it is for the potential recipient to receive the laptop. If it is deemed infeasible, the request would be declined.
  • Once a request is approved, the decision would be recorded publicly, and the applicant would be sent an agreement email to confirm.
  • Requests may be reviewed even when there is no equipment available for donation, on the understanding that approved donations would be fulfilled once additional equipment becomes available.

Delivery

Once the agreement email is confirmed, arrangements will be made with the applicant over a private channel on how to deliver the equipment.

  • To keep costs down, equipment will most often be delivered as opportunity permits by Wikip/media volunteers agreeing to serve as couriers and carry the equipment with them on a trip where they would meet the applicants (e.g. Wikimania, Wikimedia Conference, regional conferences), or their compatriots (if they'd agree to deliver the equipment to the applicants by prior arrangement).
  • shipping laptops is not being considered at this point in time.
  • the courier would only bring the equipment to a meeting if the applicant (or delegate of theirs) is known to be attending, i.e. has secured a visa and has a booked flight ticket.
  • All this means that it is entirely possible very deserving requests will not be fulfilled because it would be prohibitively expensive to get the equipment physically delivered.

Completion

Upon delivery of the equipment, applicants would confirm receipt of the equipment publicly, on the wiki page of the request. Once confirmed, the donation is considered effected, and closed. Recipients of donated laptops are encouraged, but not required, to record the use the hardware is put to, on the request page, or in blogs or social media posts, linked from the request page.

Such documentation can be motivating for other volunteers to request hardware, and for volunteers and movement organizations to continue putting in the work to prepare and provide this hardware.

Available to carry laptops

Please indicate if your going to Wikimania in Paris

USA

UK

Ghana

Current donation requests

Category:Hardware donation program requests

Approved (Health related)

Distribution likely to take place at Wikimania:

Updated as of May 1st 2026

New applications and updated applications go immediately below:

Messaged to update application

Open requests

Draft requests

Declined requests

Design principles

In order of importance:

  • Principle #1: This program must be low-cost, in both funds expenditure and volunteer time investment.
  • Principle #2: The goal is to get hardware in the hands of people who need it and who are very likely to use it to further the Wikimedia movement mission.
  • Principle #3: To the maximal practical degree, distribution should be fair. This does not guarantee anyone in particular receipt of a laptop, but aims at equitable opportunities to be considered for hardware gifts, always respecting principles #1 and #2.
  • Principle #4: The program is not designed to meet short-term needs on any kind of deadline. If equipment is needed for a project with firm deadlines, it should be requested in the context of one of the existing grant programs. Due to principle #1, even if a donation is approved, there is no guarantee regarding the time and mode of delivery of the hardware.

Evaluation

See also

Category:Hardware donation program#%20
Category:Hardware donation program Category:Pages using the DynamicPageList extension