OLPC Great Wide Open

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)1. Intro2. Mission statement3. History4. Features5. Future6. Findings

Started as a collaboration with Media Lab at MIT to design a low cost laptop intended for use by children in developing nations.

To empower and educate children through the use of technology, and connect the world’s next generation of thinkers.

Nicholas Negroponte, Founder & Chairman

1. Intro

Five Principles:

1. Kids keep the laptopsthe laptop is coupled with the responsibility of protecting, caring for, and sharing at home

2. Focus on early education, 6-12 year-oldschildren don’t need to read or write to use the machineplaying is the basis of human learning, helps teach reading/writing skills

3. Saturation whole country, a region, a municipality, a village, a classroom - every child owns a laptop

4. Connectionout of box the laptops will connect with each other, without internetif one laptop is connected to the internet, all others will follow

5. Free and open source softwarefor growth and adaptation

1. Mission Statement

2005 - The $100 Laptop (previously 2B1)

The first early prototype was unveiled by the project’s founder Nicholas Negroponte and then-United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan on November 19, 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia

When Negroponte first announced the project, he was aiming for a price tag of $100 per device. This prompted the project to be nicknamed the ‘$100 laptop’.

The first units are expected to cost around $140, with prices dropping as production ramps up and component prices decrease.

3. History

2006 - Children’s Machine 1 (CM1)The “green machine” included a hand- crank generator, making it self-powered. Part of the orignal design, the crank was no longer integrated into the laptop itself, but a similar device could be optionally available as a hand or foot operated generator.

2007 - XO-1Full scale production started in November 2007. Quanta computer, the projects manufacturer, confirmed orders totally 1 million units. Quanta indicated that it could ship five million to ten million units that year because seven nations had committed to buy the XO-1 for their schoolchildren: Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand, and Uruguay.

2007 - XO-1There were no plans to release it commercially, but as a Christmas promotion, they started the Give 1 Get 1 project (G1G1) for residents of US and Canada. The price was $399, paying for two laptops, one given to a developing country, and one for the consumer to keep. The program, which ran for an inital 2 weeks and was extended, grossed approximately 2 million dollars per day in “donations.” The program was re-introduced for 2008, available to more countries.

Prices remained $199 for both the winter 2007 and winter 2008 Give One, Get One campaigns (and thus $398 per pair).

2008 - presentOn May 20, 2008, OLPC announced the next generation of XO, OLPC XO-2, a smaller 2.0 version, scheduled for release in 2010, in which dual touch screens will replace the keypad. In late 2008, the NYC De-partment of Education began a project to purchase large numbers of XO computers for use by New York schoolchildren.

Current versions will have Microsoft Windows installed - where previ-ously the machines only ran on Linux. XP was delayed for almost a year. Microsoft had to build new sets of drivers that could fit to the very small storage capacity of the XO. With this version of XO, the mesh networking may not be available. Although XP has been squeezed to the bare es-sentials, it still wouldn’t fit to the 1GB storage capacity. Instead, expect that XO will be released with a preloaded 2GB SD card.

1GB Flash memory (no hard drive)Fedora-based (Linux) OS, Microsoft Windows256MB memory1200x900 7.5” display - reflective (backlight off) monochrome mode for low-power use in sunlight; backlit color mode, rgbWi-FiInternal SD card (for microsoft)built-in color camera (640x480; 30fps)built-in speakersmicrophone3 external usb portspower: rechargable battery, external manual power options

4. Features

The screen is composed of several layers. Starting at the back, there is a white LED backlight, a 1200x900 grid of color filters, a semi-reflective layer, and a 1200x900 LCD. • Indirectsun,youseeonlyreflectedlight.Thebacklightsettingdoesn’t matter. • Inacompletelydarkroom,thereisnoreflectedlight.Soyouonlysee the backlight, and if you turn it off, you see nothing. • Inbetween,youseesomemix.

Each pixel is capable of either R, G, or B. Only one. It relies on its neighbors to provide the others. So each pixel has:

Display

Power

Sugar is a free desktop environment designed with the goal of being used by children for learning

Sugar does not use the “desktop” “folder” and “window” metaphors. Instead Sugar’s default full-screen activities require users to focus on only one program at a time

File handling metaphor is known as a “journal” which automatically saves the user’s running program session, allowing them to later use an interface to pull up their past work by date, activity, or file type

Also available on Linux distributions ubuntu and Fedora

Released under the GNU GPL (General Public License)

Sugar

programs are called “activities”

intentionally designed to encourage the modification of its activities and core functionality by users (open source)

“low floor, no ceiling” low floor for the inexperienced, but doesn’t impose a ceiling upon those who are

Sugar Cont.

Sugar Cont.

Sugar Cont.

Sugar Cont.

Sugar Cont.

Sugar Groups View Sugar Neighborhood View

5. Future

Pursuing a smaller 2.0 version, scheduled for release in 2010, in which dual touch screens will replace the keypad. The new version will have lower power consumption and a $75 price--a figure that OLPC claims is achievable despite the fact that the current model, the XO, sells for nearly double the sum mentioned in its "$100 laptop" moniker.

1. Theft and Grey (or gray) Market2. Re-selling (Black Market)

The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of “one laptop per child.”

The Uruguay programme has cost the state $260 (£159) per child, including maintenance costs, equipment repairs, training for the teachers and internet connection. The total figure represents less than 5% of the country’s education budget.

Around 70% of the XO model laptops handed out by the government were given to children who did not have computers at homeThe annual cost of maintaining the programme, including an information portal for pupils and teachers, will be US$21 (£13) per child.

6. Findings

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107887635573341686661.00045a8f74844ef1681f8&ll=7.370236,20.126953&spn=176.885334,360&z=1