OLPC Bangladesh

About Bangladesh

Profile of Bangladesh

OLPC in Bangladesh

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Founded

1st August 2009

About

Dedicated to making education for children in one of the world’s poorest country a priority, not a privilege.

Overview

In 2002, MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte experienced first-hand how connected laptops transformed the lives of children and their families in a remote Cambodian village. A seed was planted: if every child in the world had access to a computer, what potential could be unlocked? What problems could be solved? These questions eventually led to the foundation of One Laptop per Child, and the creation of the XO laptop.

OLPC’s mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have insufficient resources to devote to education. By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, we are giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other, and a springboard into their future. And we’re also helping these countries develop an essential resource—educated, empowered children.

OLPC Bangladesh will accomplish this goal in Bangladesh.

Mission

Provide educational opportunities for Bangladesh's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

Communication platforms

Mailing list

Join this mailing list for regular communication with members of the OLPC Bangladesh community.

OLPC Bangladesh Mailing List

Facebook and Twitter

Join us on facebook and twitter to keep abreast of news and latest developments and help foster, cultivate and develop a fan base for the OLPC effort in Bangladesh.

OLPC Bangladesh's Facebook page
OLPC Bangladesh's Twitter page

OLPC MAP of efforts in Bangladesh

Add yourself or your OLPC BD related work to the OLPC Map.

Bangladesh OLPC Map

People and Projects

George Hunt

A support volunteer, visited Bangladesh in January 2010, and has made some Travel notes. He will continue to be active in adding to the contact information which follows. Feel free to update and add to this page. Or you can send him updates, corrections, pictures, etc and he will add them. (George is at georgejhunt(atsign)gmail(com suffix)

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Jamil Ahmed --www.Ankur.org.bd

George Hunt met with Jamil,the Director of Ankur, while he was in Dhaka. The Ankur web site has a lot of information about teacher training that was just in the planning states when he was there in early 2010. see http://www.ankur.org.bd/wiki/Home

Ankur has been active in translation of open source tools, Firefox, Gnome Desktop, and the development of Bangla fonts. Ankur is funded by a Spanish development program, has a 15 person staff, and has already contributed to the internalionalization of many Sugar Activities. Ankur's initial focus has been on tools and digital infastructure, but it is beginning to work on teacher training, and has sponsored workshops for educators.

(I happened to take a photo of the white board while I was at Ankur which shows Ankur's plans to develop tranining materials for educators see http://picasaweb.google.com/jess.ganas/BangladeshOLPCVisit2010#5436245603287983442 --George Hunt).

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Tanvir Mohammad

RT 69693

It's ok with me if you redirect the queries from Bangladesh to me. I can surely use some help form interested people over here since I often got patched up with my professional works.

I'm trying to comes up with a coordinates project. From my point of view in countries like Bangladesh where resources are limited, we need to accommodate multiple ideas in one. So we're trying to combine a agriculture knowledge base and content repository for OLPC framework. I talked with some govt. officials about it and they are really interested on this idea and as a result Bangladesh Agriculturist Institution join with us and we are starting the primary training program from January.

I've some detailed plan on these. I like to share it with you guys if your are interested.
Tanvir Mohammad
Chief Technology Officer
+880 167 1675652
tanvir(dot)mohammad(atsign)beyondtechbd(com suffix) tanvir(atsign)beyondtechbd(com suffix)

Beyond Technologies
House 71, Road 7, Block H, Banani, Dhaka-1213, Bangladesh
Phone: (880) 2 989 7274, Cell: (880) 1716 059 526, (880) 1819 544 944
Email: info(atsign)beyondtechbd(com suffix)
[www.beyondtechbd.com]

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Maung Nyeu

RT 72975

Hello,

I'm Maung Nyeu and I'm intrigued by OLPC and its potential. I would like to request information specific to OLPC implementation.

Currently, I live in California USA and employed in engineering and finance industry. I have a graduate degree in engineering and a business MBA. I grew up in a nomadic tribe in remote corners of Chittagong Hill Tracts, near the borders of Bangladesh and Myanmar. In many remote areas children live in extreme poverty, schools are sparsely located, and in some areas, there are no schools within walking distance. As an immigrant and native of Chittagong Hill Tracts, I feel a compelling need to bring the light of education to those children. My answer to this problem was that I funded a non-profit organization and established an orphanage residential school. This year, we provided support for education of seventy-two primary school children.

At this point, I'm interested in exploring opportunities OLPC can provide to children in remote areas. I'm also interested in knowing OLPC success stories and challenges in reaching children in remote areas I'm well aware of structural and regulatory issues in a third world country. However, the alternative is to leave the children uneducated, which is unthinkable.

I'd be honored to speak with someone within the OLPC organization regarding these issues. Please provide me with a contact name and number and a convenient time to reach you.

Thank you in advance. Please keep up the good work. The world needs OLPC.

Warm Regards and Happy Holidays!

Maung Nyeu
maugn (atsign) gmail (com suffix)
949.510.3763

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Nafis M. Ghani

RT 38623

Please send [people] my email Address. I do not have much of an access to Chittagong though.

However, I personally know a person from Bhairab (Kishorganj District) who has dedicated his entire life in setting up primary school and college and student dormitory. The fees of the school along with dormitory/food is absolutely nominal. His main aim is to educate poor students. There are near about 3000 students in his education institute.

Interesting part is, he pours all his personal income in the development of his school. He uses the entire tuition fees for the development of the schools solely.

You would be able to capture good amount of crowd if you organize the program in Bhairab for sure.

Please do let me know if I can come to any of your help.

Nafis

Nafis M. Ghani
"mi.wg" <mi.wg.bd (at sign)gmail (dot com suffix)
CEO Wiseman Guidance
Phone: +8801713034196

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Ayeleen

RT 43385

On Tue Jan 04 22:50:27 2011,
ayeleen (at sign) friendship-bd (dot org suffix)
wrote: > Hi George, > Thank you for your reply - yes, you can put my e-mail address on the > listserv and also give it to people who are interested in funding and > starting projects in Bangladesh. > Thanks, > -ayeleen Hi,

We at Friendship would like to explore ways in which we can partner with OCOL. We work in the river banks and char areas of Bangladesh in health, education, relief and income generation. We would like to expand our primary education program and start secondary school programs and would like to explore opportunities with OCOL.

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Nancy Hoque

RT 48843

From: Nancy Hoque
<nancyjhossain (at sign) gmail (dot com suffix)>

George,

Very recently, our AABEA team has partnered up with ORCA to package new computers, printers and monitors to create an Orphanage Computer Center in Chittagong. Its already up and running.

You may pass along my contact. What is the progress of implementing OLPC in Bangladesh?

Thanks,
Nancy

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Mahamud Hasan (Shamim)

RT 74354

Md. Mahamud Hasan (Shamim)
Chairman
Maitri International School
Dutta Bhaban, College Road,
Debidwar, Comilla
Mobile: 01712-248403
E-mail: mahamud.bep (at sign) gmail (dot com suffix)

Dear Sir, Good Morning!!! I will introduce myself as Md. Mahamud Hasan (Shamim), Chairman, Maitri School, Debidwar, Comilla. The school was established in 2000. Our school has 210 students. Most of them are from underprivileged background. There is 14 teaching staff in the school.

We are running this school Not for Profit purpose. Recognizing our school's performance, this year British Council has included in its* Global School Partnership Programme (GSP). *Under GSP, *Marine Park Primary School, London

• is our partner School in UK.

There are few local benevolent persons who offer scholarships to some of the ultra poor children in our school*.*

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Maja Najdic and Monishankar Singha

RT 73723

Dear Mr Hunt, yes, you have our permission to pass on our email and phone number to others doing deployments in Bangladesh:

Maja Najdic, E: maja_najdic (at sign) yahoo (dot com sufrfix), M: +386 40 712 712
Monishankar Singha, E: ms.singha (at sign) yahoo (dot com sufrfix), M: +386 31 684 942
SEE http://olpcMAP.net & TYPE SLOVENIA OR BANGLADESH

The activities useful with the XOs in orphanage would be firstly learning the technology, how can they apply this technology to their daily school life activites and later the teachers can give us some proposals for the activities useful with the laptops.

We have to ask you to send us contact info for the ones in Comilla and ones for the tecnical scills. We were in Bangladesh in october 2009 and there we bought a computer but the electricity was going on only 2,5 hours per day with the interruptions. The internet access is provided by the Gramin link, wireless internet receiver through usb. They do not have electricity connection in every classroom. For the wi-max we do not have any information yet.

Improving digital literacy in Bangladesh rural areas - (directing from Slovenia)

Follow this link to see the Proposal and Plan

AND SEE THE ALBUM http://picasaweb.google.com/112971568895931713381/Bangladesh20032009#

On 2/3/2011 we got 2 XO-1s for which we had to pay Fedex 40 EUR even though package was DDP. Mr. Holt said that next time we have to refuse to pay: "Unfortunately OLPC cannot refund any such funds, but insisting in advance to Fedex and your local customs authorities that Fedex is under "DDP" contract to prepay duties/taxes often works -- per the legal definition of "Deliver Duty Paid" here:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms

Bureaucracy-battles are never easy in any country -- many thanks for all your help!!! --Adam Holt"

SEE OUR ALBUM FROM LJUBLJANA WHEN WE GOT THE PACKAGE https://picasaweb.google.com/112971568895931713381/Mar42011#