EKindling/Projects/Kindling Discovery Pilot2009

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Welcome to ekindling (Education Kindling) Discovery Pilot 2009. eKindling.org is an organization formed within the OLPC-Ph grassroots community.

Project Details

Name of Project: OLPC Philippines: Kindling Discoveries Pilot Program

Shipping Address: 45A Laguna Tower, The Residences at Greenbelt, Makati City, 1226

Loan Length: September 2009-October 2010

Laptops requested: 50

Overview and Significance

Education is crucial to eradicating the gross poverty and inequality that plagues the Philippines. Unfortunately, the incredibly high dropout rates and number of out-of- school youths indicate that quality education is not reaching countless of children across the Philippines. This goes beyond digital literacy, or facilitating the learning of reading, writing, and arithmetic. This OLPC driven project is about unlocking the innate talents of children from depressed, marginalized and poor communities so that they may better their lives and their communities.

This pilot will serve as the foundation and beginning for all other OLPC deployments across the Philippines.

Furthermore, this pilot program will allow us leverage the large community of developers in the Philippines. Through this program, we can activate inactive developers/supporters and create content that can be shared amongst the greater OLPC community.

Objectives

  1. Successfully design and deploy a scalable and sustainable pilot program in an elementary public school with an inaugural class of 30-35 students.
  2. Use good and best practices from initial pilot program to support XO deployment programs throughout the Philippines.
  3. Facilitate development of Philippine-centric content for XO laptops with partner academic institutions and volunteer developers.
  4. Grow community of different stakeholders/supporters ranging from educators, academic institutions, developers, business leaders, philanthropist, etc. that can support future deployment and content development.
  5. Share best deployment practices and valuable content for the benefit of the global OLPC community.

Team Participants

  • Sandeep Chandiramani (Organizational Team): Sandeep spent a decade supporting Red Hat's 100-fold growth worldwide. The experience has allowed him to pursue management positions in finance, sales and operations in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific. More important, the exposure has allowed him to build a foundation for embracing the values of open source and its advocacy in education and enterprise.
  • Harv Viray (Educator): Harv is currently a senior lecturer in the Dept. of Computer Science at the University of the Philippines (UP). He graduated from UP Diliman with a BS and MS degrees in Computer Science. He is also on a PhD track in Math Education Student at the UP Open University. His past work experience includes positions as a SAP Technology Consultant at Hewlett Packard and as Senior IT Manager at AGC. Integrating Mathematics and IT programs will play a significant role in his dissertation.
  • Jerome Gotangco (Technology): A technologist by heart, Jerome Gotangco managed IT departments from the semiconductor, telecoms and non-profit sectors, all of which involved Open Source as a key adoption strategy that resulted in several successful deployments. Jerome also served as External Vice President of the Philippine Linux Users Group, Edubuntu Community Council (www.edubuntu.org) and recently, the Ubuntu Community Council, the community governance board that is responsible for supervising the social structures and community processes of Ubuntu Linux Project (www.ubuntu.com. He has also organized community-driven developer events in the Philippines such as BarCamp Manila (www.barcamp.org/BarCampManila) and DevCon (www.devcon.ph).
  • Ryan Letada (Organizational Team): A graduate of Wheaton College with a BS degree in Economics, he is currently a Fulbright Fellow, researching the mass eviction of urban poor communities due to infrastructure development projects in the Philippines. Working with the Asian Development Bank, government agencies, private enterprises, and non-profit sector, he is exploring best practices of resettlement and community/urban development. After a stint at Bloomberg LP, ABN AMRO, and Ten3 Venture Capital as an investment analyst, he worked at World Wide Workshop foundation doing development work and social media marketing. He also co-founded Pinoy Computer Clinics, a social venture aimed at closing the digital divide.
  • Cherry Withers (Content Development Team): A graduate of California Polytechnic University with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering, Cherry worked as a design and verification engineer developing solutions for a computer server company (Silicon Graphics, Inc.) for over four years. She also worked for three major high tech companies as a test and applications engineer before graduating from CalPoly (Intel, 3COM, Apple). Her recent work experience includes: MySQL database administration, Web Designer, and Marketing Manager for the company she co-founded (MomWorx, LLC). She is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Software Engineering.
  • Marife Mago (Content Development Team and OLPC mentor): A graduate of Aquinas University, she earned her Bachelor's degree in Education and worked as a Teacher in Sacred Heart Academy of Novaliches. She then crossed over into the IT industry through a DoST scholarship grant, in cooperation with Asia Pacific College. In her ten years experience in IT, she worked at leading firms including FAS Technologies, Inc., Software Ventures Int'l, Information Technology Solution Int'l., E-World Resources, Inc. and Exist Global Inc. Some of her previous positions held wereSoftware Developer and Program Manager. She spearheaded several Open Source initiatives in several Universities in the Philippines and participated in technical curriculum/program development.
  • Glibert Dauz (Sagip Bata Coordinator): Glibert is currently a senior consultant at Soluziona Philippines. His current assignment is in the Utilities and Energy Business Unit of the Meralco Company. He is also a volunteer/coordinator at Sagip Bata (Saving Children), a Gawad Kalinga program that focuses on educating children in impoverished communities.

Sharing Deliverables

As a community-driven organization, one of our primary thrust is to grow our community and its capacity to support content development and pilot deployment. Philippines already has a fertile ecosystem of advocates ranging from business leaders, developers, academic institutions, parents, non-profit organization that support eKindling and OLPC’s vision. We will use various communication and social media tools to provide updates on new developments, engage active supporters, and garner more support locally and globally. In turn, we also hope to share our learning and best practices with the greater OLPC community. OLPC is a global educational initiative – and we are very much a part of it!

  • Website: www.eKindling.org: This site is currently in development and will be launched in September 2009
  • Wiki: www.wiki.laptop.org/go/Project/ekindling: Progress/evaluations reports will be posted here.
  • Twitter: www.twitter.com/eKindling: Follow us on twitter to learn about new developments, innovations in IT in education, and any other relevant news pertaining to OLPC/Sugar
  • Facebook: OLPC Philippines Group: Engage 238 members from differing professional backgrounds.
  • Kindling Discovery Series: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Kindling_Discoveries_Series: These are a series of Open Talks with experts from the global OLPC community. This forum will be used to facilitate discussions pertaining to content development and deployments. Bryan Berry of OLE Nepal was our first speaker. We will also use this forum to share any developments in the Philippines.

Plan of Action

  1. eKindling Incorporation (In progress):
    1. Core Team and Incorporators (Assembled)
    2. Awareness Campaign and Community Engagement (In progress)
  2. Initial Discovery Session (Ongoing):
    1. Kindling Discovery Series is ongoing (designed to spread awareness and continue learning). First speaker was Bryan Berry (OLE Nepal). Next is Caroline Meeks from Solution Grove.
    2. Kindling Discovery Series is ongoing (designed to spread awareness and continue learning). First speaker was Bryan Berry (OLE Nepal). Next is Caroline Meeks from Solution Grove.
    3. Discovery Session: Inviting all non-profits, educators, developers and other parties that have expressed interest for an informational session.
    4. Philippines Youth Congress in Information Technology: Confirmed Speaking Engagement Y4IT
  3. Educator/School Consultation (In progress):
    1. Sagip Bata – Sites visits
    2. Numerous public schools have expressed interest in piloting an XO program. We are still in the process of identifying schools that meet our criteria for partnership.
  4. Content Planning/Development (In progress):
    1. Asia Pacific College – one of the nine centers of excellence in the Philippines have expressed strong interest in partnering with us to develop content. A Memorandum of Agreement is being drafted to formalize the partnership. We hope to create more partnership with other centers of excellence and leverage the wealth of developers in the Philippines to create content and application.
    2. edu2.org - recently have expressed on collaborating in content development especially on Lesson Plan Exchange.
  5. Curriculum Development:
    1. XO laptop activities will serve to enhance existing curriculum, not replace it. Curriculum development will commence after the consultation of the chosen public school.
    2. Educator Preparation/Training:
    3. Continuous educator support, guidance and training will be provided in regards to hardware, sugar.
      1. In-school and off-site training
      2. Call support: Educators will be able to contact us if support is needed
    4. Incentives Program: We recognize that teachers are already overburdened. Learning from the experience of others, we are looking into providing stipends for participating educators.
  6. Pilot Deployment
    1. Pilot program design will heavily rely on learning from past deployments (Teaching Matters, OLE Nepal, Waveplace). We will collaborate with our partner school and institution of higher learning to design a deployment.
    2. Evaluation/Progress Report
      1. Evaluation mechanisms will be a pivotal part of the pilot program design. We hope to learn so that we improve our practices from good to great. We will share these findings with the global OLPC communities as well.

Needs

  1. We need 50 XO laptops. This project cannot be carried out in emulation in non-XO machines since most teachers and student do not own a computer or a laptop. The XO laptop is the main technological vehicle of choice also due to its ability to withstand tough environment. We will consider rebuilt laptops.
    1. 35 laptops for a class of 35
    2. 2 Spare Laptops in case of damage or loss
    3. 3 XO laptops for teachers and administrator
    4. 7 for developers and partner academic institutions
    5. 3 for fund raising team/demo/presentations

Mentorship

Yes, mentorship would be invaluable. We specifically need to coordinate with Sugar developers and organization that are successful in XO deployments. We need experts to be part of our advisory board as well.

Tentative Timeline

Activities/Tasks Aug-09 Sept-09 Nov-09 Dec-09 Jan-10 Feb-10 Mar-10 Apr-10 May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sept-10 Oct-10
row 1, cell 1 row 1, cell 2 row 1, cell 3
row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2 row 2, cell 3
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