OLPC Afghanistan

One Laptop Per Child Afghanistan This is the new Official Wiki page for "One Laptop Per Child Afghanistan" project. The old page is archived at [One Laptop Per Child Afghanistan]. Project Goals Afghanistan is a very famous for being a multicultural country. Participation of the OLPC project in Afghanistan will not only revolutionize the way children are taught, but also scale up the eco-system of sharing between the diverse set of communities existing in the central Asian countries. The mission of this Nonprofit Organization is to create an environment for OLPC, take necessary steps to ensure every child in Afghanistan gets the laptop and develop the Local Activities for OLPC laptops that could revolutionize how Afghani children are educated. The goal is to provide every child in Afghanistan with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves in a collaborative way. The Ministry of Education Afghanistan (MoE), and Ministry of Communication and Information Technology Afghanistan (MoCIT), in a unique public-private partnership with USAID’s Afghanistan Small and Medium Enterprise Development (ASMED) and Telecom Development Company Afghanistan - Roshan, launched the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project in Afghanistan in September 13, 2008. Contacts and Further Information • Official OLPC Afghanistan website • Official OLPC Afghanistan Dari Weblog • Contact Salim Hayran, OLPC Afghanistan Project Coordinator • Send inquiries to info@olpc.af Stakeholders The following stakeholders are working together to improve education and bring new opportunities for economic development through low cost computing and computer literacy for the Afghanistan's future workforce. • Members of Ministry of Education Afghanistan • Members of Ministry of Communications and IT Afghanistan • USAID's Afghan Small and Medium Enterprise Development (ASMED) • Roshan: one of the largest private employers in Afghanistan • PAIWASTOON Networking Services Ltd: PAIWASTOON is Afghan-International company with a focus on developing sustainable solutions that Make IT Work For Afghanistan. We specialize in open source technology, localization and online applications. We seek opportunities for technology to have a positive effect on as many Afghans as possible, as sustainability as possible. We build the capacity of our local team towards the aim of creating a sustainable locally led company. For further information, contact the implementation team. OLPC Afghanistan Team OLPC Af. Team inside the Office OLPC Af. team in Qargha Collaboration by the Stakeholders Localization of XO's into Afghan languages (Dari & Pashto) has been successfully completed, Pashto translation is completed both in pootle online translation server as well as our Entrans translation server, Dari translation was completed offline and then uploaded to pootle server and the translation over Entrans was also successfully completed. In order to load localized interface into XOs, MoE in cooperation with ACSA verified (approved) the translation of Pashto localization and now we are waiting for the approval of Dari localization. The Pashto Verified / adjusted files were compiled and uploaded to the XO machines before the deployment in Jalalabad, where now it’s being used in XO laptops. On May 31st, 2009, a collaborative effort was made between OLPC Afghanistan, Master Teachers by Satellite for Afghanistan (MSTA) and Afghan Film to develop an educational game for the XO laptops deployed in Afghanistan. Stories of Nasruddin will guide children through the game. The game will focus mainly on literacy (Dari, Pashto) and numeracy; in later stages science subjects such as physics, biology and chemistry will be added. OLPC Afghanistan expects that the game will be developed in next 2-3 months. Deployments Team Members Involved Volunteer Team Sohaib Obaidi Ebtihaj Usman Mansour Ansari Mohammad Hamed Quraishi Read More about the OLPC Afghanistan volunteers [here OLPC Afghanistan Team Read about the OLPC Afghanistan Team here Join the FaceBook group for fresh and updated news as well. Pilot Program OLPC technical implementation team started working on 19th of November 2008. In December 2008 OLPC Afghanistan deployment team received 10 XO's from the Ministry of Education Afghanistan, for a test lab, which was based in PAIWASTOON office. These XO's are used for experiments and testing in OLPC-AF Office by its technical team, in order to develop and test new activities and software for XO's. First Deployment Twenty teachers have been trained in this school and now they are teaching students with XOs. The Master trainers were trained in PAIWASTOON office and they trained the teachers in the school. In January, 2009, teacher training took place in Kabul and Jalalabad. Each was four days long. The deployment should have started in the last week of January, but it actually happened in mid-March. On March 17th, 2009 a ceremony took place at the governor's palace including the Deputy Minister of Education Afghanistan, Director of ICT for the Ministry of Education Afghanistan, Director general of ICT for Ministry of Communication and IT Afghanistan, parents, children (top class position holders e.g. "honor roll"), USAID/ASMED's regional manager and the OLPC Afghanistan Technical Implementation Team. In its first deployment plan, OLPC-AF provided 396 XOs to every single child in a school in grades 4, 5 & 6 at the Istiqlal High School in the Ningarhar province of Jalalabad. Once the remaining number of XOs are received from OLPC, they will be deployed to grades 1-3. The Istiqlal parents’ attitude, community acceptance, and the school’s overall attitude toward OLPC were the major factors for selection. Also the school size and the number of students in that school was the best match for our first pilot school. The deployed laptops are pre-installed with: * Complete localization of all core activities in both national languages of Afghanistan (Dari and Pashto) * The Ministry of Education standard national curriculum books * Economic information for parents including advice on job interviews etc, a local business directory, a guide to starting a business in Afghanistan, and research of different possibilities for starting small businesses locally. * Health information (Basic Hygiene, Nutrition, Hand washing - some remaining to be translated) * Localized updated manuals / guides that replace the standard user manual and appear when the user clicks the Help Icon * Information for parents about the XO laptop and it's benefits Roshan Telecom provided Internet connectivity (64 kbps) to the school, and now students are connected through the mesh network as well as low-speed (just for upgrading of sugar/activities) Internet connection. Children were of course delighted to receive the laptops and quickly started exploring. The Technical Implementation Team is following up the pilot school to see how the kids and their teachers are getting on with OLPC XO laptops. Information on the Pre-Selected Schools for Implementation Here is the list of schools in 5 provinces of Afghanistan. OLPC Laptops will be deployed to all Kabul schools and 25 selected schools in other provinces. Here is the list of schools for pre-selection: Kabul Baghlan Balkh Herat Nengarhar Second Deployment OLPC entered its second phase of deployment on June 21st, when students in grades 4-6 in four Kabul schools were given 2000 laptops. Upcoming updates of this deployment will be coming soon. Deployment Wiki Page Read here Picture Blog View pictures here Media Coverage 4/3/09 Huffington Post: “Afghanis Desperately want to Learn and aren't Afraid to Do So: Washington can't be Afraid to Help Them” by Matt Keller, Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa for One Laptop per Child. 3/5/09 CNN: “Laptops bring lessons, maybe even peace” 2/10/09 USAID: “One Laptop per Child Program to be Launched in Afghanistan” 1/31/09 USAID: “One Laptop Per Child program launched in Afghanistan” 9/9/08 Tech World: “How the OLPC can help beat Taliban in Afghanistan” 9/5/08 PC World: “OLPC Seeks ITU's Help to Promote Laptops” 12/12/07 CSR Wire (The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire): “The Kite Runner Inspires Gift Through One Laptop” The Structure of Technical Operations The Structure of Technical Operations Laptop Update & Maintenance Procedure Example of Networking Site for Teachers The first diagram shows the structure of Technical operations of OLPC Afghanistan. The Second one is the chart of Laptop Update and Maintenance procedure and the job of each team member. The third diagram is showing an example of networking sites available for teachers in schools. Sections: The whole Technical operations can be divided into 5 sections. Deployment teams section This section's responsibility is deployment of OLPC laptops to schools with all related logistics and actions. Technical trainers section Technical trainers are responsible for education of teachers and at the beginning of the project also for education of Technical operations staff. User service team section User service teams provides support for teachers and schools what OLPC laptops concern – troubleshooting, documentation creation, development of new activities (programs). This team will closely cooperate with Ministry of Education on development of new content and activities for OLPC already deployed where MoE will provide the Curricular specifications and content and User service team developers will create the programming part. Localization team section Localization team is responsible for translating the current activities into Dari and Pashto. This activity will take place at the very beginning of OPLC project. Job descriptions of each position Following are concrete job descriptions of each position within Technical operations. Position: Technical implementation manager Main responsibilities: Coordinating whole technical side of OLPC Communicating with Project manager at the MoE Monitoring and evaluation of technical aspects of OLPC implementation Coordinating of reporting to Project partners (Roshan, ASMED, MoE) __________________________________________ Position: Deployment technician Team: Deployment team Responsible Persons: Main responsibilities: Deploying computers to schools Checking mesh network created automatically by XO laptops Checking and installing basic electrical work for laptops Connecting computers to internet via GPRS __________________________________________ Position: Deployment intern Team: Deployment team Main responsibilities: Assisting Deployment technicians with laptop deployment to schools Checking mesh network created automatically by XO laptops Checking and installing basic electrical work for laptops Connecting computers to internet via GPRS __________________________________________ Position: Tech trainer Team: Training team Main responsibilities: Training of teachers – technical aspects of using OLPC (basic usage, troubleshooting etc.) Training of Deployment teams – technical specifics of deploying of OLPC Training of User services officers – usage of OLPC, troubleshooting ___________________________________________ Position: User services director Team: User services team Main responsibilities: Coordinating work of User services team Assigning placements for members Communicating with MoE regarding new activities (applications) development Overseeing documentation creation Overseeing incident database and Support line Overseeing fixing laptops and linked logistics Overseeing development of new activities (applications) Review of content materials and communicating it to MoE for approval ____________________________________________ Position: User services officer Team: User services team Main responsibilities: Writing documentation for use of activities (programs) Helping to write specification for new applications for OLPC Creating Help pages/manual for teachers Operating Incident database Remote support for laptops Checking/fixing laptops that arrive Checking diagnostic programs Answering support line ____________________________________________ Position: Developer Team: User services team Main responsibilities: Develop / Adapt activities (programs) for Afghan Curriculum Support training university students Develop and finalise standard OLPC images for deployment (client & server) Developing community web applications ____________________________________________ Position: Dari language translator Team: Localisation team Main responsibilities: Translations of software content from English to Dari ____________________________________________ Position: Pashto language translator Team: Localisation team Main responsibilities: Translations of software content from English to Pashto ____________________________________________ Position: Community Development Liaison Main responsibilities: Community Building for OLPC Afghanistan, i.e community promotion of OLPC AF around the world, manage and update Facebook & other related groups, send news mails, update blogs etc. Update OLPC Afghanistan Website Send news around OLPC forums (grassroots, wiki and other online related sites...) Deputy for the Economic Development of OLPC Afghanistan. ____________________________________________ Position: Economic Development Officer Main responsibilities: Generating ideas, collecting data about trainings, research etc. To provide with relevant information to parents and which would help them with education and most importantly to increase the family income. ____________________________________________ Position: Media / graphic designer Main responsibilities: Design and editing of publicity materials such as videos, guides, leaflets, cards, photos, CDs etc. Coordinate the layout and design of internal and external communication materials (banding), including newsletters, reports, pamphlets, posters, website stories, brochures, reports etc. Oversee publishing of designed document such as printing (quotations, communication with printing services, quality check up etc.), website updates, distribution of documents psychically and over email / mailing lists and similar. Other duties as reasonably delegated External links Lets Explore the XO One Laptop Per Child Afghanistan official website PAIWASTOON OLPC Afghanistan Dari Blog OLPC Afghanistan Dari Wiki Page OLPC Afghanistan on Wikipedia OLPC Afghanistan Sugar-Labs wiki Page This category is only for pages that describe an OLPC deployment. Category:Deployment planning is for pages about the topic of deployments. See the Deployments page for deployment summary information pulled from these pages. Template:Deployment puts pages in this category. Deployment coordinators can use Has default form::Form:Deployment to edit these pages; look for an 'edit with form' tab on them. Afghanistan