OLPC Switzerland

There are 4 national languages in Switzerland. English (which is not a national language) is probably the best way to reach the largest audience. That is the reason why we publish in English here.

What is OLPC.ch?

The non profit association olpc.ch

In June 2008, the non-profit association One Laptop Per Child Switzerland was founded in Bern, Switzerland. To become a member, start by subscribing to the mailing list and send us an email to introduce yourself to the rest of the community.

Here is a short video about olpc.ch recorded at the Swiss Day of computer science (August, 29th 2008) [Play Video]

• We use this Wiki for collaborative publishing
• We communicate and coordinate on the olpc-ch mailing list [Subscribe]
• We host files on Dropbox [View]
• We own the olpc.ch domain name and make it available for OLPC Switzerland initiatives
• We have a Twitter channel : olpcswitzerland [Goto]
• We have a Facebook page : olpcswitzerland [Goto]

The objectives of olpc.ch

1. Demonstrate that the OLPC educational initiative and philosophy are worth promoting in Switzerland
2. Show that XO laptops and tablets are not simply «cheap personal computers for developing countries» by using them in one of the world's wealthiest countries
3. Promote the dissemination of XO software and hardware in German, French and Italian speaking regions by adapting them to these languages.
4. Promote the Squeak and Scratch programming environments by adequate examples and ideas developed in Swiss pedagogic universities and tested in Swiss schools
5. Emphasise the importance of basic computational concepts in contrast to product-based knowledge by using non-commercial hardware and software
6. Demonstrate and encourage the possibilities of digital learning tools within Swiss education

For the official list of our objectives, please refer to article 3 of our new statutes (in French only). Our objectives include the promotion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Education (in French : TICE).

Our Flyer (also Flyer in German as RTF and Flyer in French as PDF) is a handy summary you may find of interest. More generally speaking, we also aim at participating in the OLPC Europe group, and share the OLPC_Europe/Vision. See also this video (in French) where Michael Vorburger of OLPC.ch speaks about the XO and OLPC Switzerland.

Who is olpc.ch?

Our mailing list reaches between 50 and 100 people.

Name	Function
Urs Lerch	Co-Chairman (German-speaking part) and Treasurer
Michael Lew	Co-Chairman (French-speaking part)
Ibrahima Guissé	Secretary
Michele Notari	Founding member, first Chairman (2008 - 2013)
Beat Döbeli Honegger	Founding member
Benedikt Trefzer	Founding member
Niklaus Giger	Member of the OLPC Support Gang
Cécile Wyler	Translator (e.g. FLOSS manuals for XO and Sugar).
Michael Wyler	Legal advisor
You?

How can I get involved?

Subscribe to the olpc.ch mailing list, get actively involved

If you are interested in following the olpc.ch grassroots movement, interested to participate in OLPC Switzerland, please do join our olpc.ch mailing list, by subscribing at http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-ch. When you subscribe, it would be nice if you could briefly introduce yourself via an email to the list. We archive the olpc-ch list for you to read what we have been up to before you joined.
Archives 1|2|3|4

Make a donation to olpc.ch

To make a donation please use the following Swiss postal account : 60-487139-0

Visit us at an upcoming event

Please check our Facebook page and Twitter channel.

Where can I get a XO?

The question most often asked by individuals is Where can I get an XO laptop in Switzerland?

• Borrow one: olpc.ch hosts several OLPC XO computers. They are used for exhibitions, presentations, and experimental use. See XO Reservation System for details.
• Buy one at ebay: You could buy an XO at ebay.com
• Help us start a pilot program: olpc.ch plans to start a pilot program in Switzerland. If the hardware that is chosen for this program is the XO, then there is a possibility that some extra computers could be available for resale to individuals. However, the primary purpose of these computers is to be used in classrooms, within a very specific educational framework.

If you are the representative of an educational institution, public or private, please send your questions and requests to Michael Lew (michael@olpc.ch).

What has already happened in Switzerland?

A selection of Past Events (in construction)

Date	Theme	Description	Link	Media
2014-11-08/10	Peace	4th World Forum for Peace - Lugano	Website	Report

Picture Gallery

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  Themewall OLPC / Ondalivre (4 languages)

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  Pictograms of OLPC-Forum.org (official)

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  X-LC1 Proxy 2.0 (by R. Ammann)

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Activities, OLPC projects - from the community of interest in Switzerland

Period	Project/Logo	Description	Contact/Team	Link	FB
2011-2014	Chile	Helping children with learning disabilities		laptop.org
2008-2013	XO-Contest	All classes, pupils students, scientists, hackers and geeks are cordially invited to join the XO-competition. The competition consists in the creation of a free choice of written work, which has to stand in connection with the OLPC project . By keeping a diary blog and a final publication, this competition should make a substantial contribution of Switzerland to the global development project. Although the written work is accepted from a variety of fields, contributions in the domains of computer science and pedagogy are favored	Urs Lerch	xo-contest.ch Final Report (PDF, 773kb)
2008-2018		Internet for schools in developing countries	Stefan Rovetto Denise Antunes da Silva Tatiana de Moraes	x-event.designo.ch	Join

Activities, e-education projects (CH)

Period	Project/Logo	Description	Contact/Team	Link	FB
2009-2010	iPhone class	Children always have a iphone device for free available for schoolwork. They can read, write, calculate, draw...	Beat Döbeli	projektschule-goldau.ch

Development

Period	Project/Logo	Description	Contact/Team	Link	FB
2010-2011	OLPC-Forum	Development of first multilingual OLPC-Forum and easy to use multilingual Library	Stefan Rovetto	dev.olpc-forum.org
2009	Proxy X-LC1	The X-LC1 is a linux based solution for project OLPC / Ondalivre. Is common for school proxies. Why so special? 1-click-setup and c2sd (conntrack to syslog daemon)	Roman Ammann Stefan Rovetto Alexandre Hill-Maestrini	sourceforge.net
2001	Etoys	An educational tool for teaching children		ofset.org

Where can I find further information?

Blogs

Read the OLPC Blog from Michael Vorburger, Beat Döbeli, Martin Hofmann, Stefan Rovetto de pt
Read more OLPC Blogs on Swissroll 1 2 3 4 | Infamy

Press

If you are a journalist in Switzerland, please do subscribe to our mailing list and introduce yourself. We would love to give you a demo (e.g. in Bern, or Lausanne; or elsewhere) of the innovative XO laptop, and share some of our enthusiasm with you... and maybe you would like to write about the OLPC movement, the XO education project, and OLPC Switzerland?

Publication	Magazine
Write a thesis. Get a laptop. Change the world	Swiss iT Magazine, 2009-11-27
All classes, students, hackers and geeks are invited to participate to the XO competition... [Full Text]
«With one click out of the misery»	Sonntagszeitung, 2009-04-13
How the project "One Laptop per Child" is an enabler of opportunities in a South African slum [Full Text]
Testing cheapest laptop in the world	20 Minuten Online, 2008-11-28
The 100-dollar laptop will come very soon to Switzerland. Is the computer a replacement for Eee-PC? 20 Minuten Online has tested the XO-1... [Full Text]
The 100 Dollar Tablet	Tagesanzeiger, 2012-01-09
The OLPC NGO will unveil at CES a cheap alternative to the iPad that can be powered manually with a crank [Full Text]
300 escolas públicas devem receber laptops	VIDA& (Brazil), 2008-04-26
Projeto Um Computador por Aluno, do Ministério da Educação, hoje restrito a cinco colégios-piloto, será ampliado no final deste ano... [Full Text]
Piaget, Illich et Servan-Schreiber dans un laptop design à 200 F	Domainepublic, 2008-01-05
Domaine Public a testé l’ordinateur qui doit apporter la révolution démocratique de l’éducation et de la connectivité globale aux enfants du monde entier... [Full Text]
Cabals and Love	NZZOnline, 2007-12-04
In the center of the industrialized world politicians, professors and business leaders want to play Santa Claus. They want to give computer technology to the children in underdeveloped regions... [Full Text]
A mobile computer not just for kids	NZZOnline, 2007-11-13
With the distribution of screwdrivers you will not be able to accelerate the industrialization of an archaic society the existence of hardware and software does not make an information society... [Full Text]
One Laptop Per Child	Hochparterre, 2007-11-01
After two years of development, the XO laptop designed in the USA is coming to the education market. The designer Yves Béhar, experts from DEZA and Helvetas speak about the project... [Full Text]
The low-cost computer get more expensive	NZZOnline, 2007-02-11
Within a period of five years, a unit costs about 972 U.S. dollars, including maintenance... [Full Text]

Re-usable Material: Logo / Header Talks / Presentations / Articles / Videos

Media	Date	Versions
Concept		en	de	fr	it	pt	es
Concept, OLPC / Ondalivre – Project outline	2010
Video (Stream, Interview)
Video, OLPC-ch – Introduction to OLPC-ch (40sec)	2008
Video, OLPC-ch – Introduction to OLPC-ch (8min)	2008
Video, OLPC-ch – Interview, LIFT conference in Geneva (6min)	2008
Video, OLPC-ch – OLPC Mesh Networking @Lift (6min)	2008
Logo (Banner, Pictogram)
Logo, OLPC-ch – official (svg)
Logo, OLPC-ch – official (not scalable)
Logo, OLPC-ch – official header (svg)
Logo, OLPC-ch – heading+ (for letters)
Logo, OLPC / Ondalivre – official
Logo, OLPC-Forum.org – official
Flyer
Flyer, OLPC-ch – Looking for specific XO opportunities	2008
Flyer, OLPC-ch – Various flyers for "Tag der Informatik"	2008
Flyer, OLPC-ch – OpenExpo Berne	2008
Flyer, OLPC-ch – XO-Context, write a thesis, get a laptop...	2008
Flyer, OLPC / Ondalivre – official (A6)	2008
Presentation (Folio, Video, Audio)
Presentation, OLPC-ch – A better education with free software?	2008
Presentation, OLPC-ch – OLPC, useful for switzerland?	2008
Presentation, OLPC-ch – Slideshow for OpenExpo Berne'08	2008
Presentation, OLPC-ch – OLPC Story from Arahuay	2008
Form
Form, OLPC / Ondalivre – Consent to the publication of pictures/movies	2008
How-to
How-to, Ondalivre – Installing firmware on a mesh unit
Software
Software, OLPC – Get_mo
Software, OLPC / Ondalivre – X-LC1 Proxy
Book
Book, OLPC – The OLPC Bible
Statistic (Database, Survey)
Statistic, OLPC – Communes/Schools (CH) interested in OLPC projects	2010