Neverware hopes to save cash-strapped schools millions by making old PCs run like new

Family Academy relies on a mish-mash of laptops and desktop PCs, many more than a decade old. Screens are cracked and keys are missing. The school’s annual budget for technology is around $12,000, barely enough to pay a part-time IT staffer to keep the few machines they have up and running. Last year, at any one time, the school had about 20-30 computers functioning for a student body of over 450. “You would come to class and just have to double or triple up with other people on one machine,” says Abimael Hernandez, a senior. “The machines were just really, slow, ya know. A pain to use.”

All that changed six months ago, when Family Academy became the first New York City public school to pilot a service from a local startup, Neverware. Hornik is friends with Michael Zamansky, a computer science teacher at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan who is tapped into the local startup scene. After hearing about Neverware, and familiar with Hornik’s frustration about the state of Family Academy’s computers, Zamansky connected the two.