Communications of the ACM
This 17-Year-Old Has Become Michigan's Leading Right to Repair Advocate
"I started watching YouTube videos and said, 'Let me see if I can do this myself,'" Surya Raghavendran says.
Credit: SKR Screens
Surya Raghavendran of Ann Arbor, Michigan isn't your average 17-year-old. Not only does the high school senior run a small business repairing iPhones when he's not in class, but he's raising awareness about people's right to fix their own devices without paying companies like Apple exorbitant fees.
"People should be able to choose where they want to get their devices repaired," Raghavendran says. "Right to repair will decrease the amount of e-waste and people will retain their devices much longer with suitable repair networks." Raghavendran is doing more than just talking about right to repair, he's become one of the leading advocates for a right to repair law in the state by pushing his lawmakers to introduce legislation that would protect a consumer's right to repair.
Increasingly, companies that make complicated devices—from smartphones to farm equipment—want a monopoly on repairing those devices. Across the US, advocates like Raghavendran are pushing back and various states are now considering legislation to protect a consumer's right to repair their own stuff.
From Motherboard
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