OLPC:Support gang

The Support Gang is a group of worldwide volunteers that help other users. When teachers & kids ask for help with their XO via email, forum, chatroom and sometimes phone, these are the brave volunteers that answer your questions. We meet once a week to hear about the latest news from OLPC, discuss the latest issues, and talk about how to make the XO experience better. Many of our 100+ volunteers are also involved in local Grassroots groups, Documentation or Testing.

Join us!

You do not have to be a developer, or even super technical to help other people.

• Do you have exceptional writing, technical and/or organizational abilities?
  
• Are you naturally supportive and friendly towards those who are eager to just get started?
  
• Do you demonstrate sincerity, appreciate an earnest team, and always adore learning?
  

In the end, Community Support Volunteers deliver high-quality Tech Support to One Laptop per Child users, teachers and kids worldwide -- as problem-solvers and educators -- each in their own voice. Our growing team includes truly exceptional individuals of all ages, meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts and by telephone for weekly calls.

See our mailing list info page to apply!

Tools

• IRC live chat

• Our core support-gang mailing list (join our debates on how to deliver the world's very best support, on a shoestring!)

• RT ticketing system

• Support FAQ / RTFM's - The core of our communications deliverables. So many requests to help@laptop.org and volunteer@laptop.org fall into a handful of categories (can I get a laptop, how do I activate my T-mobile account, etc) that we continually refine our library of clearest responses.
  • Reworking the RTFM response templates Support_Gang/RTFM

• http://forum.laptop.org

Recruiting

  A. RT/Tool Admin(s):  Seize the opportunity to build out real ToolSmithing
around worldwide OLPC Support.  Work closely with OLPC grassroots leadership
to drive our support community's workflow forward, scaling up from 100
proven volunteers towards 1000.

  B. Librarian:  Organize our exploding corpus of public and private Support
Documentation.  A literary, social, organized and driven volunteer would be
absolutely ideal.  Please all apply!

  C. Community Organizer:  Write regular public newsletters for our Support
Gang team, explain our successes, introduce new members, develop an online &
offline Social Network irrefutably demonstrating the rewards of participaction!

CONTACT: holt AT laptop.org including your phone number -- I will call you back in any country.

Trips / BBQ

• Founder & coordinator Adam Holt visited almost 20 volunteers in early July 2008, driving from Boston to Chicago, Atlanta and beyond to meet with and understand the beating heart of OLPC.

• BOSTON BBQ COMING SOON SEPT/OCT 2008!!!

• West Coast & European trips forthcoming -- JOIN US

History

Begun in December 2007, we are fortunate to have an amazingly enthusiastic and deeply talented diverse team. Our group is named "Support Gang" rather than just "Tech Support" as we support learning as well as technology, and are increasingly supportive of our growing base of 3rd World users who have tech-support needs quite different than those of (for example) the United States. While the majority of our members have core competencies that are technically-based, we value strength through diversity; and have educators, entrepreneurs, artists, and more, including people with no formal technical background whatsoever. All Support Gang(st)ers, however, are computer-adept and willing to learn community technologies they don't already know!