Computer bus man Alex Townsend to retire

Wed, 04 Mar 2020

A teacher, who was once recognised by Apple for his unique Isle of Man computer bus service, is to retire next month - seeing an end to longest project of its type in the world.

Alex Townsend, known as the computer bus man, was teaching at St. Ninian’s secondary school in the 1990s when he came up with the idea of converting a decommissioned Leyland bus into a mobile classroom to teach children about the internet.

The bus was originally bought by the Department of Education for £5,000 before it was transformed with the backing of the Isle of Man Government, Manx Telecom and Isle of Man Transport.

On its launch in 1998, the project was hailed as a state-of-the-art travelling computer centre to take computer education into the 21st century in local press, but many doubters thought his idea wouldn’t catch on. Twenty-two years later Alex estimates that more than 100,000 children have used the service.

The bus was unplugged for the final time at a special event at Sulby School attended by many people who have used the service since 1998.

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