Belgium

The viewpoints expressed hereunder do not necessarily reflect the opinion of OLPC.
This page was created by a member of the free volunteer community supporting OLPC.

Welkom-Bienvenue-Wilkommen-Welcome

Belgium

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Country Information
ISO Country Code	BE
Wikipedia Article	Wikipedia Link
Government Support	Low and not OLPC Priority
Deployment	Demonstration (under 50 machines)
Languages
Keyboard Layout	AZERTY, several Layouts a@ www.OlpcEU.org Brussels
Written	Flemish/Vlaams (Vl), French/Français (F), German/Deutsch (D)
Spoken	Flemish/Vlaams (Vl), French/Français (F), German/Deutsch (D)
Secondary Written	Flemish/Vlaams (Vl), French/Français (F), German/Deutsch (D)
Secondary Spoken	French (Fr)

... and thanks for visiting the "OLPC" related Wiki-Pages, for the One Laptopschool Per Child initiative for our country. By using miniaturisation and mass production to drive costs down, OLPC develops and produces a strong, rugged, PV powered, open source and open hardware laptop-tablet to help foster a transformation of society where it is introduced by entering through the kids/ youth and the educational landscape, thus reaching out to the families and bringing society as a whole to a next level. This website is a collaborative website, so create a login and start collaborating, editing and adding the pages. This tool is made available by the One Laptop Per Child not for profit. OLPC is

1. an Open Community-project, similar to the Wikipedia, wikibooks, etc.,
2. an Open Source-project, like Linux, OpenOffice, etc.,
3. an Open Hardware-project, like Arduino, the Open Source Ecology, building farm/community equipment, OpenCoresand many more Open-Hardware projects,

OLPC is a very small not for profit and makes sure the XO laptop remains in the open and free community landscape, that innovations are continuously integrated and that orders can be placed and shipped. As such, OLPC takes a seat at the table next to the innovators and financiers. OLPC has to offer large orders for a continuous numbers of months of the innovators' technology, which makes the financier prepared to finance the machines the innovator needs to manufacture the technology and reply to OLPC's order. The idea is that whilst producing OLPC's order, the innovator can secure other customers. In exchange for the massive order, OLPC gets access to the most innovative technologies at rock-bottem prices, whilst helping innovations come to market AND straight into the hands of schoolkids first. If there are resources available, OLPC helps promoting the project with governments of the poorest countries first.

OLPC is working along Agenda 21 and Millennium Development Goal nr.2: Bringing Universal Primary Education.

• 2' video - OLPC Intro part 1
• 2' video - OLPC Intro part 2
• 7' video: Prof. Nicolas NEGROPONTE: The impact of an OLPC deployment on teachers, parents, kids, society.
• 10' video: Transformando! Documentary on a Transforming Social Innovation Project with as ingredients: the energy of kids and their transformational power in families an societies, some top social workers, the solar powered OLPC XO. Watch and be amazed ...

The aim of this educational project, is on one hand to bring Universal Primary Education by 2015 as - anno year 2000 initiated - United Nations Millennium Development Goal nr.2. On the other hand, OLPC's mission is to manage the open-community -, open-hardware - and open-software -project, Open Robotics-project, to bring forward the best possible laptop combination for education: the XO-XServer combination. For this and above approach, - and also a lot of lobbying by the right persons on the right places and time - the United Nations is a Partner in this Open-Community - project! It is the largest educational project undertaken by Humanity ever, and deemed by many as one of the most inspiring projects out there. 2008, saw the first countries with a 100% roll out to all of their kids aged 5 till 15: Peru, Uruguay. By now, several Island States and Rwanda have a 100% deployment too; several more countries and regions have olpc laboratories and test deployments.

Every XO can load over 1000 eBooks on its memory and has a choice of +86.000 eBooks available, as well as many (educational) games, all education disciplines covered, etc. etc.. things are moving fast indeed.

Although OLPC has not opened any legal OLPC Belgium entity in Belgium, Belgium did host the European Headquarters of OLPC in the magnificent surroundings at the befriended SWIFT company near Brussels.

Our country has a very multi-cultural society with a very diverse diaspora. We hope that this diaspora will work their way to these pages and that our society will benefit from these citizens with one leg in our country and another still in their countries of origin to develop leadership for OLPC, Agenda 21, the MDG's and accelerate bringing the level that our planet can be a nice place for all humans to new and inspiring heights for generations to come.

Plan of Action

1. Belgium Development Aid Partner Countries
   1. Algeria, Benin, Bolivia, Burundi, DR Congo, Ecuador, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Uganda, Palestinian Territories, Peru, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Vietnam, South Africa
   2. Contact those responsable for every country and explain olpc, ask their opinion
2. A budget for lectures and workshops
3. Who are the leaders in the educational landscape in your Belgium?
4. Some punchy titles for lectures:
   1. Though some European kids may have an iPad class, may they still be missing the boat or are they on the wrong ship? Reading the wikipedia or being part of the wikipedia? That seems sum up both projects.
   2. A programmed to fail device or a laptop-x-tablet made to be repaired: all the same screws, only 1 standard + screwdriver needed?
5. A budget for a labo in every region where the educational landscape can meet the XO-XS, robotics
6. An olpc cell in your organization?
7. How the One Laptop Per Child education project brings programming back into education and how it was among OLPC's first objectives: Uruguay, passed a law that all kids have to learn to program. That’s wonderful. It’s not because they’re going to get jobs as programmers but because programming is thinking about thinking.

More

Please feel free to create sub-categories or list or start collaborating, teaming up and expanding our and your projects, existing and new ones in one of these sub-categories:

1. BRUSSELS HARBOR GROUP ORDER LIST CANDIDATE BUYERS OF AN XO LAPTOP
2. OLPC Europe
3. OLPC Belgium
4. Belgium
5. FAQ OLPC-Belgium
6. Who's Who Belgium
7. Who's Who OLPC-Belgium
8. OLPC-Belgium Meetings
9. OLPC-Belgium Discussions
10. OLPC-Openings in Europe
11. OLPC-Openings outside Europe
12. OLPC Competing projects in Belgium
13. What every government should ask itself when considering an ebook deployment
    1. Is there room for an open source AND open hardware laptop annex tablet in the EU Educational Landscape?
    2. FAQ and Most Frequent Misconceptions
       1. How much does the laptop cost? Anno 2013: 160 € + 30 € for the PV panel
       2. The deployment pays for itself thanks to the CO2e certificates the deployment generates and the additional tax revenues from an ict literate and equipped population who is more capable in generating additional value and consequently spends on more advanced gsm/satellite etc. on which the gvt. levies taxes.
    3. A computer for poor kids or simply the best educational laptop-x-tablet for any kid, including yours? You don't want to give your kid a 750 € iPad; you want a school reduced so it fits in a sturdy child proof lunch box and chatbots as 1st line teachers. Put 4 wheels on it and you have a robot, put 4 rotors on it and you have a drone.

Suggested Links

1. Manuals, especially a Deployment guide,
2. OLPC FAQ
3. Fundraising
4. More on the Country_Box here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Template:Country_box

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