You'd think, if the UK were the global powerhouse it claims to be, that the government could arrange for every household with children to receive a low cost laptop, 4G wireless, for each child who needed one with a dedicated support service for parents home schooling. You'd think

Would it solve all of the problems? No. Would it solve some of them. Probably. And it wouldn't be bad for every kid in the country to have a laptop of their very own. Could include a box of facemasks with the delivery, too. The cost would be negligible set against cost of not

Get the Raspberry pi folks to stick the pi400 in a laptop casing. British ingenuity at its best. Lovely story. Get a lovely photo op. Give all the kids a boring computer and give all the parents some dedicated support. Cost that out and the spending wouldn't be massive.

Solve the problems that covid-19 is presenting. Use the tools government has at its disposal. Show the government cares about people's hardships by actually trying to solve them. A UK filled with boring, low spec computers would not be a bad outcome

Also, while I'm at it with my suggestions, get someone working on a low data usage/low spec alternative to zoom and teams. Lets get some frugal innovation stuff going to solve these problems which aren't going away any time soon.

Seriously, single-board computers with a few cheap peripherals like keyboard, screen, tiny webcam, lots of USB ports could really make a difference. Do an education and communication operating system, build in a 4G data thing. There's enough clever folks to make it happen

We could also redistribute older, unused tech but a custom built thing is better because the whole thing would be standardised, making support and development easy and simple, because everyone would have the same set up. Delivery logistics can be sorted via existing means

Imagine what a good news story it would be, and how it would be written up in years to come. The UK's Covid Computer. I'm fed up with the look back bores who think 'it should just go back to 2019'. It's stopping us solving problems and people are suffering right now as a result

Right now, if I were someone with a bit of power (which I'm not) I'd be asking places in the global south about their frugal innovations to support communication, support community and to look after people's wellbeing. We've got few answers in the top-end high spec global north