According to the 2011 Indian housing Census, less than one in 10 households in India have access to computers or laptops. That’s just about 9.4 per cent of our population, the urban population to be precise, because computer penetration in rural India remains abysmally low at less than one per cent. And how many of them have ever seen Google is anybody’s guess, in a country that’s currently en route to Mars.

At the heart of this staggering digital divide is the issue of affordability. While most of us simply trash our laptops for what’s latest in the market, thousands of families are still saving up money to bring home their first PC.

But cousins Mukund B.S. and Raghav might have hit upon a solution, not just to make PCs more affordable but also combat the biggest trash problem of the 21st century. The two run a facility called Renew IT near Bengaluru’s Electronics City. They buy computers from corporate houses which are no longer needed, refurbish them and sell for prices starting as low as Rs 4,500.

Also, as a Microsoft-registered Refurbisher, they provide original Microsoft Windows 7 licences to schools and NGOs at roughly 1/10th the market price. That means, you can get a Rs 35,000 PC for less than half the price. Last December, Renew IT reached the magical figure of selling 10,000 high-quality, low-cost computers. And now the cousins are in the thick of setting up offices in Hyderabad and Mumbai and hoping to scale up their revenue to Rs 5-6 crore.

Follow them at: ReNew IT