Repair centers
This is a community-run effort. The content on this page is not necessarily produced or endorsed by OLPC or its employees.
How you can help
We need action, but first we need ideas that can be put into action, since repair centers can involve the complex and costly shipping of parts across the world, and we'd like to minimize this whenever possible and discuss it in advance. Some specific things we're looking for are below.
Business plans
We need "business plan" proposals for individual repair centers themselves - which can only be generated by the folks who want to run those centers, as each situation is different. What will you do, how will you run both logistically and financially, where will you get resources and what resources will you have, what services will you offer to whom, and so on. Note that it may be a few months before we're ready to have other repair shops join the fray, but we can certainly start preparing. Add your group to the Repair center locations list, get in touch with an existing repair center group directly with feedback, or generate ideas for business plans and post them here.
Supply chain solutions
We need to find a way to deal with the financial, shipping, and legal logistics behind repair centers getting parts - wide-scale donations (even of broken machines) to any repair center that wants them isn't a scalable/sustainable solution. There's also the tough balance of ensuring repair centers are run by good people doing good work without imposing onerous "certification" burdens on either the repair centers or OLPC itself (which doesn't have the resources or the desire to be the Big Boss behind all these repair shops) - again, any help in coming up with models and solutions for this would be super-welcome. Add your thoughts on the discussion page.
Collaboration models
A number of global/grassroots communication and collaboration models among repair shops so that they can share ideas, parts, refer customers to each other, and so on. After generating a strawman business plan for your center, you may want to get in touch with one of the other centers-in-the-making and hash out ideas together for how two entirely different repair centers - or more! - might be able to work with each other. Get in touch with Repair centers directly, or add your thoughts on the discussion page.
Situational adaptations
The situation in the US with G1G1 and small, privately-run pilots is also rather different than the situation in the countries that the "give one" laptops are rolling out to en masse. One is the availability of parts (and transport to ship things in and out) and the proportionally higher "real cost" of parts as a significant expense to XO users not in "Get One" households. Another is saturation of laptops in an area and how that affects supply and demand - if 15 centers in Chicago want to open repair shops, but only 100 laptops exist in the entire metro/suburban area and most of those are with developers who can usually repair their own, what can centers do? Local pilots in "Get One" areas will change the saturation situation drastically - how will community groups react? Add your thoughts on the discussion page.
Doing more than just repair
Repair centers don't have to just do repairs, they can do other things that require physical equipment like peripheral/hardware/charger etc. design, community gathering places... becoming a physical meeting point for local Grassroots groups. What else can you think of? Add your thoughts on the discussion page.
Existing proposals
Infrastructure suggestions
- Local Coordinator with Backup
- From our current volunteers, support and otherwise
- Location: University, Church or Other NonProfit
- Must have secure onsite storage for equipment , tools and parts
- Must have shipping/receiving capabilities during "normal business hours"
- Must be able to accomodate 30+ people plus parking
- Must *not* require additional insurance waivers etc
- must have broadband available: ethernet to set up temporary hotspot
- Times: Regular Periodic
- At least monthly
- As often as weekly, or more, if staffing and demand supports it
- Atmosphere:
- Model on Apple Genius Bar? eg. make it an showcase for OLPC and the XO
- Setup Hotspot
- Setup Mesh
- Allow drop ins to mesh their XO's
- Snacks etc if volunteered
- really great POS from OLPC
- A few demo XO's for folks to try
- Repair:
- DIY supported
- Knowledgeable volunteers to help
Other resources
- Volunteer repair centers being formed around the US
- Interactive XO Support Forum Interactive Community Based Tech Support Group
Discussion on repair centers can be found on the talk page. Also see the pilot repair center going up at Boston-area Olin College as a first testing point of the infrastructure - more sites to follow.
