OLPC:Outreach/OLPCorps

OLPCorps RfS

Dear friends,

Starting this Spring, we started the OLPCorps program to stimulate grassroots laptop
deployments in Africa.  We solicited proposals from student teams around the world 
interested in carrying out small OLPC deployments in Africa, and hundreds of motivated students from four continents responded.  In order to ensure sustainability, teams are required to have a relationship with a local NGO that plans to support their work in the future.   
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPCorps

30 of the teams were selected to receive 100 laptops and up to $10,000 
for expenses.  The program is being run out of the OLPC center in Kigali, Rwanda this 
summer.  Representatives from every team and from a number of countries are attending a 
ten-day learning and deployment workshop in the Kigali OLPC center during the first week 
of June.  Students will be welcomed by high-ranking government officials, various civil society actors, and by scores of children demonstrating their expertise on the XO.     
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPCorps_teams
[link to blog post]

This is another step towards realizing our vision of improving access to connected 
laptops for children in the least developed parts of the world.  In order to make this year's experience an extraordinary success, and to help this project dramatically expand next year, we need your financial support.  Please help us build on these efforts with a 
donation. 
http://laptop.org/en/participate/ways-to-give.shtml

And help us build our local networks -- spread the word to people you know interested in 
the 17 countries deploying XOs! 


Sincerely,

<signed>
for the OLPCorps team