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In my humble opinion there are 5 phases to get from nothing to an implementation and follow-up of an OLPC Universal Education Project. The first phase which I've called the "Commercial Phase" concists out of people contacting the Ministers of Education and other decision makers. OLPC Europe e.g. has a dedicated team to this phase. They do nothing but contacting all the Embassies and ensure their support to get them an appointment when the Minister of Education, the Prime Minister, the President of a country arrives in Brussels. When the route is prepared, i.e. when an appointment with a Minister of Education, a Prime Minister and/or a President have been arranged, you can be sure OLPC has the budget to fly in someone who is actually on the pay-roll of OLPC and who has been trained to work out a contract that aligns with the wishes of the country and has signatory power to confirm it. Getting to the point where there is a contract, working out such a contract,
- on the side of OLPC stating how many XO's and other hardware to kickstart with, what accompanying services from OLPC side are requested, for how long, and
- on the side of the government having black on white that they will have a team ready in the ministry of Education and eventually selected one or more schools and have informed the Principles and found teachers prepared to take take part in a first XO implementation
is quite a job ! It is a very complex and long process where a lot of variables must fall into place: the right people have to be gathered. The obstacles of bribes with the Prime Minister, President, Ministry of Finance, President of the National Bank, Ministry of Education have to be removed. You or someone has to be able to meet one to one with each of these to understand if bribes are an issue. You have to be in a position where all cards come on the table. In meetings with everyone together or even with people present apart from the minister etc. present, this can be enough that this issue of bribes cannot be put on the table. Make sure you don't make mistakes in the numbers of their Swiss bank accounts and be prepared to find that some "cousins and cousines" who manage these Swiss accounts and "Foundations" also have to receive money. Then when you have had a meeting with maybe these 5 people, and they have been able to put all their cards on the table, comes the second obstacle: getting them to an agreement when they are all together. Just to warn you not to underestimate the first "commercial phase". It is shear impossible to do that without having a lot of money, or doing it on the sideline of another project, takes lots of time, can't be done in just 1 time, takes a number of cycles of going hence and forth, and it requires being in the position where these people will take time to receive you let alone take you serious. My advise, be real: why are Ministers/politicians interested in an OLPC Universal Education Project? 1. Because it gets them re-elected, the project results in a massive media attention for them minister, the XO's are very visual 2. it's a massive project so normally they see big amounts appearing on their Swiss bank accounts.
