OLPC Korea

OLPC Korea is developing ONLY a game: XO City, & NO relation with the OLPC Foundation.

2007 status: orange
		orange

This text is in English. 영어로 작성된 페이지입니다. 한국어로 보실 수도 있습니다. 한국어로 보기

Welcome to OLPC Korea. We are a few Koreans participating in applying a derivative OLPC Project to Korea (first South, then North also). See OLPC Korea News.

THE CONTENTS BELOW ARE MERELY OUR TESTS OR TRIALS, NOT RELATED TO THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF OLPC FOUNDATION. ALL OUR ACTIVITIES ARE UNDER THE PROCESS OF JUST TRIALS. PLEASE DON'T BE CONFUSED WITH ANY PUBLIC PROJECT OF A NATION OR A RENOWNED ORGANIZATION.

Introduction

Of course, the aim of citizens under the flag of OLPC Korea is to persuade the Korean government to participate in the OLPC project, but we take some different approaches. Because the IT infrastructure of South Korea is in a status somewhat different from most of under-developed nations, we (some Koreans) are now localizing the OLPC project to be proper to the current IT environments of South Korea.

See South Korea for details about the nation, and anytime visit FAQ - OLPC Korea for questionaires.

Because the Korean government has already established a kind of national IT reformation plan, Vision 2030, and the plan encompasses educational informatization, we need to adjust the OLPC project to harmonize with the Vision2030 plan. Major adjustments are as below.

AGAIN, OUR OLPC DERIVATIVES ARE JUST AN EXPERIMENT. PLEASE DON'T BE CONFUSED WITH AN ALREADY FINISHED MOCK-UP FOR MASS PRODUCT

Local Adjustments

For South Korea;

• OLPC HAD BETTER be supplied to not only elementary school children, but pre-primary, secondary and college level students also.
• Because the Korean government wants to establish a national-wide information superhighway connecting all organizations each other(connecting not only among schools but governments, corporations and other organizations all together), we need to supply OLPC-like machines to other social sections also (such as governmental organizations or corporations).
• Because the Korean government wants to apply FEA to all social sections in Korea, we need to establish a kind of localized FEA, that is Open Enterprise Architecture, harmonized with the OLPC project.

Yes, it's quite different from the original concept or goals of OLPC, but we already did a lot of adjustments necessary. We hope our trial be a reference model to some nations such as USA or Japan who have similar governmental plans.

Some derivatives of OLPC

THE CONTENT BELOW IS OUR TEST IN A LAB ONLY, NOT A REAL MODEL BEFORE PRODUCTION

We are now making some derivative prototypes based on OLPC. We hope OLPC to be used for childern (3~12 years old Koreans, because the primary educations for most of Korean children begin from 3~4 years old, due to some peculiar (or notorious) educational eager of Korean parents. So, we think OLPC is most appropriate for those ages, 3~12 years old.

As you know, from IT infra aspects, South Korea is one of the highly developed nations and almost all students connect to the Web almost every day, at schools, at homes and at PC bangs. Therefore, we hope to make three derivatives of OLPC and now under the process of making MOCK-UPs.

• Larger OLPC for students in secondary educations.
• OLPC Smartphone for college students.
• Korean Mesh Network for all students in Korea.

A larger OLPC: Type II OLPC TEST MODEL

We design a larger OLPC proper to the hand size of students, 13~18 years old. It's quite easy work, just enlarging the display and keyboard panels of the original OLPC.
Summary of a lager OLPC

• All the same software/hardware architecture with OLPC, except;
  • 12.1" display panel
  • 274× 195.1 × 27mm
  • 1.25 kg
  • 800~1,200 Mhz CPU Clock
  • Mouse as IP Phone

See Larger OLPC or Type II OLPC for details.

OLPC Smartphone: Type III OLPC

The second derivative Experimental model of OLPC is a smartphone type, designed for college students and citizens. Because more than 80% of college students in South Korea are using cellular phones, we think OLPC of cellular phone type is proper to the daily lives of those college students. Of course, by substituting their mobile phones with OLPC-based smartphone, the spread of OLPC may be more easily widened.
Summary of an OLPC Smartphone

• All the same software/hardware architecture with OLPC, except;
  • 3.5" display panel
  • additional input/output device, a set of display and keyboard.
  • 300~350g
  • 700~1,000Mhz CPU

See OLPC Smartphone.

Korean Mesh Network

We hope all educational facilities adopt OLPC or one of its derivatives. Then those OLPCs shall establish a natural communication network because of the population density of South Korea.

Furthermore, because the missions of OLPC are somewhat different from those of current laptops, the mesh network had better be managed by a kind of NGO, consisting of governmental divisions, NGOs, educational organizations and others.

Summary of Korean Mesh Network
It Provides;

• seamless Internet connection, faster than 512kbps
• VoIP
• monitoring the appropriateness of educational contents for each age

See Korean Mesh Network for details.

Progress

Pre-primary schools

Due to governmental interests on national-wide kindergarten system, the educational process in South Korea is expected to begin from 3 years old in a near future. So, we plan to distribute OLPC to those pre-primary educational facilities first of all. See the list of those facilities and contact information in Korean pre-primary schools.

Because of some economical and political issues, the Korean government hesitates to accept OLPC as it is. So, we made some adjustments to the original OLPC plan. That is, we start a pilot program of applying OLPC to kindergarten level. Visit a pilot kindergarten program for details.

Launching OLPC in South Korea

Schools

Estimated budgets of OLPC deployments in schools: USD $1,785,000,000.

• Korean pre-primary schools: 193 millions
• Korean primary schools: 475 millions
• Korean secondary schools: 558 millions
• Korean (under)graduate schools: 559 millions
• Korean special-purpose educational entities

Governmental Organizations

Estimated budgets of Type III OLPC deployments in governmental organizations:

• Korean central governments
• Korean local governments
• Korean governmental entities

Business sections

Estimated budgets of Type III OLPC deployments in business sections:

• Business Server

OLPC Derivatives

• Larger OLPC
• OLPC Smartphone
• input/output device
• mouse with IP phone

OLPC Smartphone: Type III OLPC

• Type III OLPC as a Business Tool
• Type III OLPC as a Learning Tool
• Type III OLPC as a Governmental Service Tool

Open Enterprise Architecture

• • Open Enterprise Architecture
  • Python Developer Framework
  • Moodle in school servers

Korean Mesh Network

Korean Mesh Network is a trial to establish ultra-low cost national communication infrastructure via OLPCs and Servers.