XO Giving

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HowTo [ID# 78794]  +/-

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.

This page is part of the OLPC wiki, edited by the community at large. OLPC also has a static Official FAQ on this program.

XO Giving specific questions

• Why are XOs sold in developed nations (as part of the get one give one program) being stripped down and only sold for a limited time? Couldn't any child regardless of geography, culture or income bracket benefit from a educational laptop like this? Additionally, wouldn't it help create manufacturing economies of scale if more were sold? This could potentially help reach the goal of a true $100 laptop faster.

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

no.

• Will the one given to a developed country include a human-power system?

no. If you mean developing countries, then yes, but only if it is needed and cost effective, determined by the deployment project team. --Quozl 06:38, 19 November 2007 (EST)

• How can one get a hand crank or yo yo? (for myself I am getting one for use while backpacking far off the grid so it is essential.)

• 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)

For example, in Europe one can't sell a laptop without a take-back program in place. (some sort of recycling/disposal thing) AlbertCahalan 01:49, 13 November 2007 (EST)

If it's really not an "arbitrary decision that forgot the rest of the world", then why does the site http://xogiving.org/faq.php 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 solvable, 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 OLPC news (unaffiliated news site).

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.

Localization keyboard is not a problem: you give a laptop in non-US countries, like Chile, African regions, .... so you have localized keyboard.

For the other hand, in EU people "expect" the same as in US: if you say that we have only 30 days warranty, we understand it as americans do ;-)

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

not at the moment.

• When will the laptops be delivered?

According to this CNN article, it will depend on the order date, where the first 20,000 ordered are estimated to arrive before Christmas and the others later. However, point 5 of the Give-One-Get-One Terms and Conditions expressly states that delivery may be subject to delays, so there are no certain delivery dates. —Joe 11:48, 15 November 2007 (EST)

• How many laptops have been sold?

• To whom can further questions be addressed?

The bottom of the pages on the OLPC site includes this: "Donor service questions: 1-800-201-7144".

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More discussion at this article's associated talk page: Talk:XO Giving