Regional groups

The deployments page summarizes actual regional deployments of OLPC laptops.

There are many other interest groups, user groups, and advocacy groups around the world enthused about OLPC's mission.

Larger Regional groups

• Spanish America
  • OLPC Spanish America is a portal that tracks information on Laptop Distributions in Spanish America
• Europe
  • OLPC Europe is a meta-grassroots group with their own newsletter and bi-monthly meetings
• Oceania
  • OLPC Oceania covers the OLPC Australia and OLPC New Zealand as well as the Solomon Islands and many other countries. OLPC Friends is the regional community organisation

National groups

Organizations that are currently promoting OLPC, and local community groups:

• OLPC Argentina — http://www.tuquito.ar
• OLPC Austria — http://www.olpc.at/
• OLPC Brasil — http://digitalmediauniverse.blogspot.com DMU - revista sobre OLPC no Brasil
• OLPC Bulgaria — http://olpc.openfmi.net
• OLPC Canada — http://mailman.laptop.org/listinfo/toronto-dev Toronto OLPC Developers list
• OLPC Colombia — http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/colombia
• OLPC Chile — http://ucpn.cl Un Computador Por Niño
• OLPC China —
• OLPC Ecuador — http://www.ecuadorolpc.org Un Computador Por Niño
• OLPC Ethiopia —
• OLPC France — http://www.relire.org/olpc-france-blog/
  • OLPC France is a team of ~15 people who are active in government lobbying, as well as being involved in OLPC Haiti
• OLPC Germany —
  • OLPC Germany is a group of 15 people who are active in public demonstrations, software development and their own IRC chanel
• OLPC Ghana — http://www.wilugghana.orgbroken Winneba Ghana LUG
• OLPC Greece — www.ellak.gr
• OLPC Haiti —
• OLPC India —
• OLPC Japan —
• OLPC Korea —
• OLPC Nepal —
• OLPC Netherlands —
• OLPC Nigeria —
• OLPC Philippines — http://olpcph.multiply.com/ OLPC Philippines
• OLPC Russia — http://community.livejournal.com/ru_olpc/
• OLPC South Africa — www.laptop.org.za
• OLPC Switzerland —
• OLPC Thailand — wiki.nectec.or.th
• OLPC Turkey —
• OLPC Uganda —
• OLPC United Kingdom —
• OLPC Uruguay — olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com

Vancouver

Jeremy Penner Looking to form an xo users group in Vancouver.

A Vancouver OLPC XO User Group Meeting was held February 16th, 2008. Details; Photos

USA groups by state

Alabama

• OLPC Birmingham
  • OLPC Birmingham has both a Grassroots group and a planned full scale implementation of 15,000 machines. On the grassroots side, their team of volunteers is experimenting with the School Servers and and recently took part in BarCampBirmingham

We are a local group of XO laptop enthusiasts committed to co-learning, hacking, and expanding the One Laptop Per Child computational experience community.

Our members include

• Software developers interested in working on software for the XO.
• People interested in seeing what all the XO can do (and trying out all of the cool features.)
• Kids and parents who want to meet other kids and parents and do cool things together with their XOs.

For more information about this group and news about upcoming events, visit http://groups.google.com/group/birmingham-olpc-userinterest-group-al

Alaska, interior

Lylah Caldwell is interested in helping start a user group in the Fairbanks/North Pole area for XO users. She has started a Yahoo Group for that purpose at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/XO_interior

Arizona

• AZ XO
  • The Arizona XO user group has been meeting since February of 2008 and has over 10 members. They have their own forum, mailing list, and are starting to work with the local Global Literacy Foundation.

California

• OLPC California has
  • OLPC SanFranciscoBayArea is a group of OLPC enthusiasts in San Francisco and around, meets on the second Saturday or third of the month.
  • Silicon Valley OLPC Users' Group Meets in South Bay Area, monthly on third Thursday evenings

1/1/08 I'd like to start an OLPC group meeting around Mountain View, perhaps weekly for the short term while everyone gets up to speed, and then monthly later on. We'll likely meet at the Dana Street Cafe. It will be informal chit chat in the beginning. Send me your email address, and I'll add you to the list.

carllinde the_usual_at_goes_here gmail.com

I'm hosting a hacking at my house on Saturday, December 22. A group will likely form off of the Bay Area Python Interest Group (BayPiggies) --CharlesMerriam 16:42, 19 December 2007 (EST)

• • Los Angeles is starting to form a local group at [1].

Connecticut

• Connecticut has two XO User groups, a Yale Interest Group and a small test deployment Middletown Childrens Project
  • Middletown Childrens Project - Dedicated to providing XO laptops and support to elementary children in this Urban Village
  • Yale Interest Group

Florida

Listen in Tally, FL would like to find out if any others in the area have gotten an XO laptop. It would be great to see how the XO works when there is more than one around.

I would like to help contact the govt about getting involved in the OLPC program and supply these machines to kids/schools in FL. In fact I have just found a page that helps you do this: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC4USALobbying. We need more sample letters on here so that more people will write to their Reps.
Let Love Flow
affiliatelinks(at)goct.net

Georgia

• Atlanta has a small ad-hoc user group. An elementary school in Fulton County is piloting a lending program with 10 XO laptops that arrived August '08.[www.creekview.org]

[[2]]

Tat Au is interested in forming an XO Learning Club in the Atlanta, Georgia area to allow young XO owners to get together, explore and have fun with XO and learn about OLPC.

Illinois

• Chicago is the home of [[OLPC Chicago] and ILXO, with the IMSA campus chapter in Aurora
  • OLPC Chicago is a grassroots group backing several initiatives, including the Illinois Low Cost Laptop Act
  • IMSA is a Highschool campus chapter (Aurora), they have several XO's and are active in testing and debugging
  • ILXO is squad of full-time OLPC volunteers who have created a local office for OLPC in Chicago
  • An XO User Group has been formed at Moraine Valley Community College (in Palos Hills, IL, a southwest suburb of Chicago). XO users from Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois (and beyond) are welcome to join. The first club meeting will be held on Saturday, January 26, 2008. Contact Larry Langellier for additional details.

Massachusetts

• Massachusetts has three different active user groups: Lexington and Olin
  • Lexington: LeXO: Lexington XO Users Group is focused on spreading information on OLPC
  • Needham/Wellesley: Olin university chapter - is active, helps with tech support and is setting up a repair center
  • OLPC Boston is an active XO Users group.

See Bug Found. See Bug Squashed. CBUG forming.. - :) Ben Nardone::My Talk::Internship::G1G1::Software::Peru::Nigeria 09:12, 22 November 2007 (EST)

Minnesota

Bill McTeer The Minnesota Chapter of the Independent Computer Consultants Association is starting a group. We would love to link up with others in the area. We have a Google Group located here: http://groups.google.com/group/icca-mn-olpc

Patrick Stein Bought an OLPC for my son Isaac, but I intend to develop some apps for it soon.

Mississippi

• Picayune Interest Group
  • Interest has been expressed but no group has yet formed

Missouri

• The Grassroots projects in Missouri have two different mailing lists, but no groups yet.
  • XO-StL (USA, Missouri, Saint Louis) — list1
  • XO-KC (USA, Missouri, Kansas City) — list2

Andrew Jensen is looking for others with XO laptops in the St. Louis Area, with the goal of sharing resources and seeing how they work together. Contact at PlatonicJensen(at)yahoo.com.

Montana

• Native Ascent (USA, Bozeman, MT) http://www.abaetern.com/nativeascent
  • Is working with Ft. Belknap Indian Resevation in Montana and the Marsabit District in Northern Kenya

New Mexico

• Santa Fe Complex OLPC Community
  • The Santa Fe community contains several members from the WorldVistA project and work in several Health projects.

New York

• Three areas in New York are attempting to organize Local User Groups
  • New York Metro Area is meeting: OLPC New York
• Long Island is still in the process of organizing
• OLPC Rochester, NY is a student group that has worked on testing the XO

North Carolina

• North Carolina
  • This group is centered among Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and can be reached at their mailing list

Ohio

• Cincinnati contains both a user's group and a repair center

Oregon

• Oregon is home to two user groups, one in Portland and one in Eugene
  • The Portland group is managed by users: mburns and Ed Borasky PDX-OLPC Users (or PDXO): http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-olpc-users
  • The Eugene XO User Group had around 10 members, but is no longer meeting.

Jane Krauss began the group on November 16. Here's a link to our Eugene XO Users Workspace. Jane hosts an XO educator group in Classroom 2.0 also. --Mark 14:29, 21 November 2007 (EST)

Pennsylvania

• OLPC Pennsylvania
  • This state has a couple of interested members on our wiki, but haven't yet formed as a group.

Philadelphia/Delaware Valley: Any interest in a local user group? Give me a holler and we'll set something up! Ike9898 09:48, 9 January 2008 (EST)

Rhode Island

• Rhode Island
  • A Rhode Island group formed for a few meetings, and appears to have a couple avid contributors, but seem to not have continued as a grassroots group.

South Carolina

• http://wiki.laptop.org/go/South_Carolina Groups in South Carolina have been talking to OLPC for years.

Texas

• XO-Austin
  • In Austin, Texas, the local user group has a community Jabber server for it's users. At least one member of the group is an active technical writer for various documentation projects.

Contact Anne Gentle if you are interested. Three of us got together Friday January 4th, 2008. We will try to meet again, perhaps at a Geek Austin event.

Eric Van Hensbergen - technically, the OLPC is my 10-year old daughters, but I'm developing software and content for her (and others as well. I'm also running a Jabber collaboration server for Austin (see Xo-austin)

Update from Anne Gentle. I have reserved the Spicewood Springs library branch meeting room from 10-11AM Saturday February 23rd. All Austin XO owners and kids are welcome.

• • In Houston, Texas, Robert Nagel has started an XO User Club. See http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/community/start_xo_user_club_houston.html and http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/?p=83399673 for more information. The first meeting is on a Saturday the 2nd or 3rd week of January.

Vermont

• OLPC Vermont Vermont Development and Grassroot Group.
  • The Vermont group is focusing on emulating the [[Sugar] UI and is spreading info about OLPC locally.

Washington

• Washington is home to two distinct XO user communities; SeaXO and OLPC Bellingham
  • SeaXO The Seattle XO User Group meets once a month to help support local users and is very active in OLPC Health

Check http://www.SeaXO.com for the latest information. As we're all waiting for our XO computers, there's not very much to announce just yet. Certainly, a meetup and a chance to try out the Mesh network capabilities will be high on everybody's list. In the next few weeks more will be added to the site.

Meanwhile if you'd like to receive any announcement and meeting information, email your contact information and interest to mailto:SeattleXO@gmail.com , or go to the SeaXO.com contact page[3].

• • OLPC Bellingham is a small user group run by Iain Davidson and contains a Local Repair Center
  • On Bainbridge Island (near Seattle) , the XOBI Group

There appear to be a few people in our community with XO laptops - we'd love to find more, so created the XOBI google group at http://groups.google.com/group/xobi

Washington, DC

• OLPC Learning Club D.C.
  • The OLPC Learning Club has several very active members, including Mike Lee and Ian Daniher. The group gives educational demonstrations, contributes to various content projects and develops software for the XO, such as GASP.

The OLPC News team is organizing a OLPC Learning Club for the DC Metro area. We'll be having our first meeting on December 18 with guest speakers and (hopefully) a mass XO mesh. Come by and co-learn!

• Blog
• Listserv

See Also

• Community building
• Category:Community
• Category:XO User Group
• Repair Centers

Keywords: User Group; Special Interest Group SIG