XO Giving

Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child
will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program
for a brief window of time in North America.

See also the Frequently Asked Questions.

In a nutshell

If you live in the USA or Canada, and during a brief period of time, you will be able to pay USD 399 for two XO laptops. The first laptop is yours to keep (the get 1 part) and the second one is donated to the program to be distributed in one of OLPC's partner countries (the give 1 part).

See also the Give Many program for giving larger quantities of laptops to your preferred destination.

XO Giving specific questions

Will the North American Laptops include any human-power system?

no.

Will the North American Laptops use the Anti-theft 'leasing' system?

no.

If so, can this be disabled to prevent 'bricking'?

see above.

Will people in Europe also be able to purchase X0s via the G1G1 program?

not at the moment.

As far as I know, not. This has more to do with logistics, support and other bureaucratic reasons that apply to international commerce of electronic equipment and not an arbitrary decision that forgot or ignored the rest of the world. --Xavi 20:44, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

Can you be more specific?:

Logistics solution: add logistic cost to price, What is the bureaucratic reasons? What UE law not allow it? (Xan)

If it's really not an "arbitrary decision that forgot the rest of the world", then why does the site http://xogiving.org/faq.html say nothing about this policy? The page clearly assumes that only people from the USA will read it (it doesn't even mention Canada). If it's really not just OLPC forgetting that the outside world exists, why is there no official clarification on the official site?

There's more discussion of this issue on Talk:Give 1 Get 1 (no clear answers or clarifications, mind)

The OLPC is a highly ambitious project in technical, pedagogical, and financing terms. The trade-offs involved mean that the paid staff are few and spread very thin. Consider the issues of shipping an EU version: people would expect a localized keyboard, OS, and basic warranty and support (not the "how do I get this program to do that" variety, but the "It doesn't turn on" variety). Then there's shipping. Yes, these problems are all soluble, but they take more than just money, they take staff, and OLPC just doesn't have any to spare right now. For those are ready to handle some logistics yourselves, there are some clear suggestions at [1].

Separately, I do think that some mistakes are being made here. A simple non-US FAQ like this one on the main website is a bad oversight. Also, it is important to make it very clear that this is not a tested, consumer-ready product - although a solid v1.0 is not too far off, the software is still very much in development, and this will still be true at Christmas.

Can you vote for which country to send the other XO? Leave some preferences?

not at the moment.

When will the laptops be delivered?

To whom can further questions be addressed?

---

• For questions and information about G1G1 participation from specific countries, see the details and questions at XO Giving/International.
• For older discussion, see Talk:XO Giving/2007.
• Click the [+] tab above to add a new section to this; put -- ~~~~ at the end of your contributions.

Feedback

I've seen Mr. Negroponte's story on "60 Minutes," and have press releases about the project. I advise a group of college students who raise money for the Zambia Open Community Schools program, a program for students too poor to attend government schools. It seems like this is exactly the population the project is designed for . . . but I'm gathering that the only way to serve a relatively small program (we've raised ~$150,000 over several years, all of which has gone directly to the ZOCS program). Is the "Buy One, Give One" program the only way we could connect olpc to the children in and around Lusaka, Zambia?

Try the "give many" program. For around $30,000 you can get 100 laptops to the location of your choice - and 50 go to a location of OLPC's choice. This obeys the principle of Core_principles#saturation. ps. Please sign your comments.

Power

If human/solar power options do not come with the laptop you get in the Give 1 Get 1 program, will they be available separately? If an option, for how much $$$?

See XO_Giving/Crank.

Using testing for expectation management

MitchellNCharity 12:43, 18 October 2007 (EDT) My understanding is an xogiving site rewrite is in progress, addressing expectation management by emphasizing the laptop is a "gift" in return for your donation. Here is an additional, complementary, expectation management idea - invoke testing. The software they receive will unquestionably be quite buggy. But we should be able to change some "Oh, _another_ bug. :( How disappointing/annoying." to "Oh, another bug! Another opportunity to contribute to the project and the world!". And at the same time contribute to expectation setting.

At least when doing one-on-one demos with people on the street, it's possible for their feelings towards bugs to go either way. Disappointment, or, turning proudly to their friends, "Hey, *I* helped find a bug!". It's something I experience myself. Perhaps some key factors include 'not being surprised', 'not getting stuck', and 'a feeling that the situation is improving'. The 'not getting stuck' is more a "creating a support model for xogiving folks, who don't have a school/city full of xo peers, perhaps by facilitating community formation", and thus off topic for this note. But the surprise, and moving towards bug finding as a positive thing, we can start addressing now.

With something like

The software will likely be buggier than much commercial software.

As part of your getting this gift, this early release of the laptop, it is our hope that you will note and report the many bugs you encounter, helping us prepare for and support, the pilot schools and initial deployments around the world.

Possible extra bits:

...by (downloading and) running the "testing and bug reporting application"... Basically, the testing team's Test activity.

Observing that children, at least in communities, can find ways around many bugs, but can't do anything with hardware and software they don't have, we have been focused getting key features more or less usable, for our user and developer community to build on.

bug reports will help... us, and the community of developers. <-- emphasize community aspect

More

• There seems a default expectation among people that they will be delivered by Christmas.

• The keyboard is too small for most adults to touch type. This needs to be made clear, lest the purchaser be surprised. Perhaps a photo with a large adult hand? Actually, some older children report it small in trials. I've no idea what the range is. The site should provide guidance.
  • The keyboard appears to be at *most* 22 cm across; this gives a size ~ 60% of a, for instance a Palm folding keyboard. Sleet01 15:13, 24 October 2007 (EDT)

• There has been a lot of news coverage of the "the battery lasts all day!". We are far from that. Which was fine when it was long-term vision pr. But not now. We should give detailed and real numbers for battery life, else wild expectations will bite us. It's an FAQ when doing demos.

• Needed: a detailed list of what you get, with picture. No crank.

MitchellNCharity 12:43, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

cool ideas

What about a counter?

It would be nifty to have a real time counter of the donated laptop via the give 1 get 1 operation.

Definitely, again this year. 18.85.49.50 05:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

What about a different color for developed countries?

Why not change the color of the XO for the "Give One Get One" program to purple or white for instance. It should be very cheap to mix another color than green into the shell. Then it is possible to put some public pressure on Ebay etc. to stop the market for non green XO in the developed countries.

Cost. OLPC would have to make special models for the G1G1 program instead of using mass production models. --Quozl 06:36, 4 December 2007 (EST)

User groups and communities

There are lots! Join one or form one. See Regional groups

Suggestion: overcoming donor hesitancy

To help overcome G1G1 donor hesitation, how about an additional tax donation chit in return for the donor's used US laptop? The original box could contain the return label and postage. Bringing the donorz cost down to $99 + ship. Or more depending on the IRS' allowed value on used gear.

Infrastructure is an issue - warehousing, and email status ("We received your return, go here to print our your tax receipt." emails). Get Backcountry.com to help out, those Mormons are awesome.

A thornier issue would be recertification, and possible conversion of English keyboard etc. Shipping individual units back to Shanghai is not tenable. Any ideas?

Why is it ending?

Why is this program ending? I have had my XO for four days and I am impressed with it. I am sure that with enough word of mouth advertising a lot of G1G1 laptops would be sold in 2008. 75.174.12.49 10:58, 23 December 2007 (EST)

See discussion on this question on olpc-open starting at: [2] 75.174.12.49 23:16, 28 December 2007 (EST)

G1G1 2?

Is there going to be another G1G1? Or something else like it? When? THanks... --Remi 05:27, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

It launched November 17, 2008 at http://amazon.com/xo, see G1G1 2008

moved from page

These seem out of date. Plese update with any information; as far as I know, neither of these groups is currently formally formed or accepting orders. --Sj talk

• The OLPC announced the foundation of a group within its organization, OLPC America. Details are under wraps until a launch later in 2008. It is unclear if they will provide laptops through retail channels or only through governments.
• A new non-profit, Earth Treasury, wishes to provide a program similar, and will accept tentative orders and pledges of contributions or donations. They are not associated with OLPC Foundation and have not described how they will acquire laptops.

G1G1 Europe

According to Amazon.co.uk the expected shipping date is December 16th, which is simply too late for considering this as a christmas present. If anything goes wrong, there is no buffer for a delay and the slightest hickup in the supply chain would result in being forced to buy some emergency present ("Please note that release dates are subject to change.").

There is no mentioning of which keyboard layout the European XO's ship with, it does not look like there will be French, German, Italian or other keyboards available, or am I wrong? A pity, this would make a perfect chrismas present for my kids and at the same time it would allow me to support the fantastic OLPC idea.