OLPC Turkey
- OLPC Turkey refers to the group of people who are actively involved in bringing the OLPC project to Turkey. The group had its first meetings in December 2007 among students in the MIT Turkish Students Association. The group now consists of the following MIT students: Serkan Cabi, Yasemin Gokce, Asli Turgut, Petek Saracoglu, Yunus Sasmaz, Alp Simsek, Zekeriyya Gemici, Burkay Gur and supporting groups and people in Turkey. The core group has weekly meetings at 8pm every Tuesday at the third floor of the MIT Student Center (84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA). Volunteers in Cambridge who want to actively participate in the OLPC Turkey initiative are encouraged to join the group's weekly meetings.
- The group is currently working closely with the volunteer-based group İLKYAR in Ankara for planning a pilot project in a public elementary boarding school (YİBO).
Outreach
Within Boston
Members of the MIT-TSA, including Alp S., have been in touch with aaron and SJ over the past few weeks, and have sat in on two presentations with and about the program. There are roughly 10 local students currently involved in the community, and a similar number in Turkey.
Within Turkey
On February 8. 2008, a press event was held in the offices of a friendly non-profit in Istanbul, including two national newspapers, to talk about OLPC, the XO, and OLPC Turkey. The aim is to reach educators and groups working in the rural eastern parts of Turkey in the near future. In 2011, DataWind, a competitor of OLPC announced that they plan to rol out similar projects in Turkey- at a cheaper rate then OLPC.<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/arts/design/a-few-stumbles-on-the-road-to-connectivity.html?pagewanted=alle</ref> 38.105.141.161 16:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
School ideas
Discussions with Alp Simsek, 17:46, 21 March 2008 (EDT)
- There is a school (Mecitözü Kiz YİBO) of 317 students, 2/3 f and 1/3 m, in Mecitözü (275 km from Ankara), for students from around Çorum. They have internet and power (at school at home); it is a town of 26,000. Mecitözü on WP They are particularly interested. Their CS teacher is away on military service, but another may be available next term.
- They are interested in getting an XO for each of the students and teachers. (Q being answered: how many teachers are there? ~330 in all? how many can be plugged in at once given school wiring; what other gear would be needed? servers, antennas, a few bulk chargers; &c.)
- local support : İLKYAR is the local volunteer-based group working with this school (and 8 others), interested in supporting this project and already working in this school (they talked to all of their schools, and this seemed the most promising one to work with XOs). Prof. Yaşar ÖZDEN from the 'computers & pedagogy education and technology dept' at Middle Eastern Technical University is working with Ilkyar, and teaches educators who go out to primary scohols to teach computers. He wants to find out more about how to help with this and related deployment. Questions: who will handle repairs, local technical support, recycling/local-shipping, and interpretation of global help questions (in tandem with the global support team)?
Online Ed in Turkey
There are many students in turkey who get online education to prepare for exams. M. Gozaydin has worked with this network and software/interfaces for them, and is interested in getting them better hardware access. He is in touch with OLPC Turkey, and discussing options with them.