ILXO

This page is a placeholder and serves as the ILXO site until we get our servers up and running (May 2, 2008).

Location

We are currently seeking an office location for June 15 - September 1, 2008 (but can take on a year-long lease if needed). The space must be easily accessible via public transport, handicap-accessible, open to us 24/7, and have high-speed internet access available; open floorplans rather than isolated offices are a plus, unfurnished is ok. Ideally, there will be at least one parking space available (for the Turtlemobile, our mobile office). Free parking and bike parking nearby is a plus. We're looking in the range of 400-1000 square feet and have funds available for deposits and the first few months of rent, although any discounts or donations we could get would be greatly appreciated (and would allow us to use our limited funds on outreach programs instead). Donations to ILXO are tax-deductible.

We also have a mobile office, The Turtlemobile, which travels throughout the state to run classes, bootcamps, hackathons, training sessions, and mini-conferences. Information on how to get the Turtlemobile come to your community will be posted soon.

Mission

ILXO is an independent skunkworks lab for OLPC grassroots groups. We catalyze and support independent OLPC grassroots groups in Illinois as well as projects and collaborations involving them. We aim to be effective enough to render ourselves obsolete by September 2008.

In other words, we're a regional nucleation group, and our charter is to help other grassroots groups in the area thrive (not to build a big monolithic lump of bureaucracy downtown). Our philosophy is to seed lots of independent, diverse options, let best practices for grassroots groups emerge, and share these best practices with others.

Think of us as a team of full-time pro-bono OLPC consultants you can call on all summer to help with your OLPC-related groups, projects, events, and more. We have a wide range of research interests and areas of expertise, and we're here to build tools, resources, networks, contacts, and provide occasional catalytic kicks. Ultimately, we're here for the summer so that by the end of the summer, you'll all know more than we will about everything - if we're successful, by the end of summer, ILXO will have rendered itself unnecessary.

Because of this, we have an explicit sunset clause of September 1, 2008. In the weeks leading up to that date, we'll step back as a community and see where we are and where our individual, collaborative, and collective efforts might go next once the sun sets on ILXO V.1.0. Who knows? It could always rise again.

Philosophies

Transparency is good. We believe in sharing ideas and as soon as other people can do something with the information even if those ideas aren't completely worked-out, because given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.

Ask forgiveness, not permission. The world is open-source and hackable, and everyone can contribute patches to improve it without having to be approved by some arbitrary Rubber Stamp of Authority first.

To learn more, fail faster. Try audacious experiments, fall flat on your face, tell everyone what did and didn't work, and do this over and over again until you emerge with something you'd like to stick with.

Our work is done when it can continue without us. We're in business to put ourselves out of business. Teaching, automating, documenting, and training others to carry on our work is the most important work we can do.

Staff

Our all-volunteer, full-time staff, in alphabetical order with research projects in parentheses (where applicable).

• Andrea Lai - Systems engineer
• Chris Carrick - Mechanical engineer (Off-grid charger design)
• Melanie Kim - Documentation/training intern
• Mel Chua - Software engineer (Accessibility)
• Mia Kato - QA/Test intern (Environmental impact)
• Nikki Lee - Electrical and computer engineer