A New South Wales teen is using his tech skills to help people, and the planet. Caleb Lawrence taught himself how to fix electronics while he was still in primary school - and now he's saving old phones and tablets from landfill to send to people in developing nations.
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00:00I've always had a fascination with taking things apart and how things have worked on
00:08the inside.
00:09My business really evolved from me starting repairing phones.
00:13So my friend, when I was in year six, had a broken phone.
00:17So I said, I'll offer to fix it for free.
00:20And then I learnt how to do it by myself.
00:23I fixed this guy's phone for free.
00:26And then I realised, hey, I can start a business doing this.
00:28So when I was 11 years old, I started my very first phone repair business called Techline.
00:34Well, now my business, Devices for the Nations, specialises in taking old devices that would
00:41have otherwise been scrapped for e-waste, refurbishing them and sending them overseas
00:45for mission to support churches, orphanages, and any other organisations in third world
00:51countries which need some help.
00:55We try and promote social justice in our school and I encourage our students to do something
01:01that will improve the world.
01:03And I see this as taking it to that next level where Caleb is actually making the lives of
01:10someone in a third world country better by providing computers, which we take for granted
01:14every day, that they don't have access to.
01:17So I think it's wonderful.
01:19I saw the issue of a lot of e-waste being destroyed and buried in landfills and I was
01:25thinking that maybe I could actually repurpose it and send it overseas where it's needed
01:30the most.
01:33So I guess I get the fulfilment and knowledge that my work has benefited people all across
01:37the world and that it's made a real impact onto many people's lives and it's changed
01:42their outlook for the better.