About us
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Across North America, passionate people help out at their community Free Geek organization to refurbish discarded computers and make them useful tools again for people who need them. In the process, people build community, gain skills, and help the planet.
Our mission is to provide low-cost computers, offer green solutions to unwanted and end-of-life technology, and work with partners to increase digital inclusion in our city.
Our vision is a city with options for access to technology that reflect people’s ability to pay, a collective commitment to digital inclusion, and the planet’s well-being.
We focus on promoting a circular economy, extending the life of products and reducing our reliance on virgin materials. We seek out unwanted electronics for reuse and refurbishment, selling them at accessible prices. Only items that cannot be reused or refurbished are ethically recycled. Without our commitment to environmental change, we would not have products that help create social change. We take pride in being an employment social enterprise, serving as a model for the circular economy, and moving towards a zero-waste society.
Free Geek Toronto is a certified not-for-profit social enterprise.
In the late 2000s, a group of like-minded Torontonians started a grassroots community organization whose original objective was to address the digital divide plight of the lower classes and the insufficient handling of e-waste in the City of Toronto. Planet Geek Toronto and Toronto FreeNet members were involved in the strategy and ideation stage of this new initiative, but it was determined that a new organization was required to execute this objective. In December 2009, CyberEquality Inc. was officially launched as an entirely volunteer-run organization with initial funding from the Toronto Enterprise Fund and the Ontario Trillium Fund, running out of a warehouse in the Junction neighbourhood in Toronto’s west end.
After two years in operations, the volunteers learned about the original Free Geek in Portland, OR when Free Geek Vancouver started their operations in 2006. Seeing mission alignment, CyberEquality invited a representative from Free Geek to visit Toronto to see what we were doing. After that meeting, CyberEquality Inc. reached an agreement to become Free Geek Toronto.
Free Geek Toronto has year-over-year increased our impact regarding access to technology for those facing barriers and the environmental impact of discarded devices. We have expanded from being solely managed and run by volunteers to include paid staff, including an Executive Director, since 2012. Volunteers continue to play a massive role in what we do, but supporting people who face barriers to employment requires staff to ensure we are setting everyone up for success.
Since 2015, Free Geek Toronto has called its shop at C3-180 Sudbury St located at the junction of Parkdale, West Queen West, and Liberty Village neighbourhoods home.
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Our vision is a city with options for access to technology that reflect people’s ability to pay, a collective commitment to digital inclusion, and the planet’s well-being.
learn moreFree Geek Toronto (FGT) is a hybrid-model employment social enterprise (ESE). We use our technology reuse operation as the foundation of a digital skills-building program through which we offer an environment for people to gain tech industry experience, emphasizing computer repair and refurbishment.
We uniquely offer the benefits of both linking employment and parallel employment as part of our program. We train employees to use open-source software, which provides critical skills for participating in today’s digital world.
We are proudly supported by The Ontario Trillium Foundation through its Resilient Communities Fund.
