Ask OLPC a Question/archive/Q1 2006
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- This is the Page that is dedicated to answering any question that you have about the OLPC project. Just edit this page and add the Question in and as soon as possible it will be added to the OLPC FAQ.
- If you wish to submit ideas, check out the OLPC Idea Pool.
- Lots of questions need answering. If you know the answer feel free to reply, sign your responce and then put it in the Answered question. There, the community can discuss and revise, so the question can be integrated with the main FAQ.
Answered Questions
Questions that had been archived on this page have been moved to the Main Archive. The thinking is that once all archived questions are in one place, they can be merged, organized and consolidated. Hexagonal
Unanswered Questions
Cambodia test?
The FAQ mentions Cambodia twice. Can you link to more information about the pilot in Cambodia? Or provide details about it in the FAQ? When? How many devices? What hardware? What ages? What type of network access? What software was used? What operating systems?
Also, what village in Cambodia?
Can tribal organizations within the US participate?
Within the US there are Native organizations and rural villages who could benefit from this as well. How can organizations which can find funding (1) work to make these available to the Tribal youth who could use them and (2)work toward customize Native content within the programming environment http://www.tananachiefs.org/
Can a legitimate NGO or foundation apply for your program?
In some countries there is a lot of corruption. Would OLPC partner with an NGO instead of the education ministry?
Well, because corruption in the Government, in Mexico of the contracts for Enciclomedia (educational material) landed in friends of the president. Likewise the distribution and maintenance contracts will go to "relatives & friends" of government officers.
Maybe NGO´s are fair organizations (like Red Cross, Rotarians, Caritas, etc.).
Campaigns for OLPC laptops for Laos and Ethiopia
There are people enthusiastically putting forward cases for Laos and Ethiopia. What information does the OLPC management need presented to it in order for a case to succeed? How will their cases be assessed please?
FUNDING IDEA!
As far as funding goes, considering how economy works in industrial countries, i would say once the project is ready for roll out, you should seriously consider to make the laptop open to everyone through a webshop:
Promote different customary designs (limited editions - for psychological reasons), promote it together by putting emphasis on how to improve the world by making a small contribution and actually getting a quite usable AND very sturdy as well as ingenious laptop not to be seen elsewhere. Sell them for around 499$, and especially by advertising that by making this small contribution 4 laptops in a dev-country (which is not to be decided by the buyer for ethical reasons) and a small amount goes in to the olpc foundation.
Reflection on "Funding Idea": $499 is a price point that many TVWeb appliances attempted; unfortunately, it's still too high. However, if they were available at $199, aproximately $50 usd over cost, a fairly high percentage of geeks on Slashdot, digg, hackaday and various other communities would not only purchase them, but I would venture that this would spur system and application development as well. The cost of selling to the public need not be high; I would suggest even allowing any of the various OSS-CD online stores, thinkgeek, and the like to carry them and the administrative overhead in exchange for a small percentage over $199 (not to mention coolness factor).
How will updates work?
- How are the OS and applications going to be updated?
- Will the teacher push updates?
- Will some other authority push updates?
- How will systems be protected from viruses/worms?
- Does the OS/apps need a deeper level of protection than local user data?
- Do you need one server system per school/village/district to handle updates?
- How are updates authenticated?
- How will rollbacks be handled?
- Will encryption be allowed/disallowed?
- Since some authority is furnishing the laptops, is the assumed privacy level zero?
- Can Village A spy on Village B via the mesh network?
15:00, 3 April 2006 User:BobBagwill