Posted on October 12, 2008 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership

Do you remember using old-school IRC chat rooms? Well Michail Bletsas does, and he tells us how that has become Chat on the XO in this second OLPC interview by Robert Scoble. He also gives us a good idea of how many XO laptops are connected to the Internet - about half.

Michail does go off on tangents, but I personally love his last point"
"More than 2.5 years after its inception, [the XO] is still the lowest powered laptop out there. And we want to improve that by a factor of 2."
Goals like that are why the XO-1 is still clock-stopping hot!

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Posted on October 09, 2008 by Christoph Derndorfer in Sales Talk: G1G1v2, Countries: Peru

On Tuesday morning Peru's president Alan Garcia updated business leaders on the current state of OLPC in the country and the government's plans for the next 12 to 18 months.

Until now, we have acquired 140,000 computers, of which 40,000 have been delivered and 100,000 are still in the process of distribution; and for next year, there is a budget to purchase 150,000 more computers.
olpc subsidized sales
Pointing to a OLPC Peru future

As previously mentioned it's really challenging to find information about the actual number of deployed XOs in the various countries. For example based on previous media reports and the numbers on the wiki.laptop.org Deployment page I had certainly assumed for more than 40,000 Peruvian children to be using their XOs already.

On the other hand it looks as though Peru has upgraded its total order volume from 260,000 XOs (as reported back in December 2007) to 290,000 units.

With regard to the cost of the purchase one report contained an interesting bit of information:

...una inversión de 116 millones de nuevo soles, monto que permitirá la compra de 152 mil 200 computadoras portátiles con sus respectivos accesorios.

This means that Peru apparently allocates 116 million Nuevos Soles (~38 million USD) to purchase the next 152,200 XOs which results in one XO costing ~$250. With the current unit cost of an XO apparently being $203~$204 I'm wondering what these "accompanying accessories" are that cost almost $50: maybe solar panels, extra power-plugs, spare parts,...?

The last piece of information concerns what might possibly be the first appearance of Give 1 Get 1 outside of North America:

...el Ministerio de Educación puso en marcha, luego de detallar los avances y logros pedagógicos de los niños que han sido beneficiados con una OLPC, el programa "2 por 1" Compra una Laptop y dona una, que consiste en comprar dos computadoras portátiles por mil 610 nuevos soles: una para un escolar de escasos recursos y la otra para el empresario que la adquiere.

It basically says that the Ministry of Education announced a "2 for 1" program which allows Peruvians to donate 1,610 Nuevos Soles (~$530) and thereby sending one XO to a deserving school with another one being sent to themselves.

If $530 is what is really takes to Give 1 Get 1 then I'm wondering why the upcoming G1G1 v2 will cost $399 and therefore turn into a Give (Almost) 1 Get 1...

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Posted on October 08, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Hardware: Peripherals

Over on the OLPC News Forum there is a whole conversation around custom XO laptop bags.

In one group, you have people like Mike Lee who searches for colorful bags that that fit the XO perfectly. In the other group, you have people like eclaire99 who made her own bag.

Still, my favorite XO laptop bag is the Open Source Hansel & Gretel XO bag from OLPC Austria. Just check out ChristophD's H&G XO bag demonstration at OLPC-LCDC back in December 2007:

Now don't you want a custom XO bag too?

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Posted on October 06, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: G1G1v2

XO stack

For those wondering about the operating system for this year's Give One Get One, I am happy to report we are now one step away from final confirmation that Sugar Release 8.2.0 will be the winner, according to this week's Current Events:

Starting October 13, all G1G1v2 XOs will be manufactured with release 8.2. The image needs to pass the final Quanta tests next week. If no issues arise, the release is final. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this happen! Release party plans are in the works.
If you cannot make the party, you can still help with the 8.2.x release effort by becoming an OLPC friend in testing with your XO. There you can help test the Sugar OS and activities from the comfort of your own XO-1. Oh and don't be shy. There is still much work to do and Greg Smith is already started release planning for 8.2.1.

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Posted on October 03, 2008 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership

For those that missed last night's fun at the OLPC News Happy Hour, where we had an update on Pixel Qi's progress from John Patrick Ryan, VP of Sales and Marketing, you can get an overview of One Laptop Per Child thanks to the "Scobleizer" who interviewed Chuck Kane, OLPC President.
Without a doubt, the "Scobleizer" is a big dork. He did not do his homework before the interview and was embarrassingly ignorant about OLPC.

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Posted on October 02, 2008 by Christoph Derndorfer in Implementation: Schools

While going through a ton of "OLPC" Google news-alerts in my inbox I found an interesting blog entry which contained a Google Maps mashup which apparently tracks OLPC deployments around the globe.

Since one of the most popular questions at presentations is where XOs are being tested already this map comes in quite handy. Unfortunately it's not quite clear to me what the source for the information being displayed in the mashup is and whether it's based on official data from OLPC itself.



Click for a larger version


When it comes to OLPC deployments and pilots it's notoriously hard to find reliable information anywhere. So when asked I normally reply with a standard list of countries which I take from the Deployment entry on the OLPC wiki. However the map displayed above contains some additional places such as Yemen and Mali, both countries which I've never heard before in the context of an OLPC deployment.

It's certainly exciting to see that efforts are going on across the globe and I guess it's time to dig around a bit deeper for more information on what exactly is happening in these pilots and deployments!

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Posted on October 01, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: User Groups

olpc stamps
Get your OLPC Stamps on Thursday
Its time to escape talk of bailouts and debates, and delve into a topic we know and love: One laptop Per Child. Why stop there, let's jump into the whole computers in education movement, with an OLPC News Happy Hour tomorrow night in San Francisco.

At 21st Amendment, we will be geeking out with our favorite green XO laptop computer, and even better, we'll have prizes for participants. Straight from Uruguay, we have OLPC stamps that proclaim education is better than child labor. And who can disagree with that?

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Posted on October 01, 2008 by Christoph Derndorfer in Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: G1G1v2


Europe dressed in OLPC green
There were 4 big questions when it was first revealed that Amazon would be running this year's edition of the Give 1 Get 1 program:

  1. How much is it going to cost? $399.
  2. When will G1G1 v2 start? November 17.
  3. Will it come with Windows XP? No.
  4. Is G1G1 v2 going to be available outside the United States?
As you can see 3 out of these 4 questions have been answered so what about the last one? Well, for the first time there are some indications that OLPC and Amazon are preparing to bring G1G1 v2 to Canada and Europe.

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Posted on September 30, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries

Both One Laptop Per Child and Intel are now moving into million-unit sales numbers for their respective 4P Computers, the XO laptop and the Classmate PC.
XO in India
XO power to the little people!
Last week, the Economic Times reported that OLPC is looking to sell 1 million XO laptops in India for $300 each. But this would not be to the Indian government, which alternates between calling the XO "pedagogically suspect" and attempting its own "$10 laptop". OLPC is looking to India's wealthily elite to fund educational empowerment through an Indian Give Many + Give One Get One:
“The laptops will only be available for charitable donations to primary schools. But, if an individual wants to buy the laptop for personal or corporate use, he/she may have to shell about $400 for two laptops. One laptop will go towards a school of his choice, while the other can be used by the buyer for personal use. We also plan to print the brand of the company on laptops provided it gets a large order,” says OLPC India advisor Hema Virani.
Interestingly, the $300 price tag includes deployment and maintenance. I really wonder what OLPC means by "deployment" or "maintenance" when Indian schools typically have an approximate $2,500 per computer TCO.

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Posted on September 29, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Commentary: OLPC News

olpc supporters
OLPC News SF Happy Hour action
The much-loved OLPC News Happy Hour returns to San Francisco this Thursday, October 2, with a special meet-up at 21st Amendment.

In addition to our usual geek-out with XO laptops, we'll also be discussing the recently released Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) report that indicates laptops-in-schools implementation costs exceed $2,500 per computer.

While not OLPC-centric, the analysis of technology costs for Indian schools is a bracing reminder that no matter the device, operating system, or configuration, computers can still be prohibitively expensive for large-scale deployments in the educational systems of developing countries. I am hoping that you'll join me for libations and conversations around this hot-button topic.

So if you are interested in One Laptop Per Child, or the whole technology in education debate, there is only one place to be this Thursday:

OLPC News SF Happy Hour
Thursday, October 2 from 6-8pm
@ 21st Amendment
563 2nd Street, San Francisco (map)

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