One Laptop Per Child News

I am Luis Ramirez and as many OlpcNews readers know, our citizen-led campaign called "one computer per child" in Chile is an attempt to achieve free and permanent access to computers for at least 1 million Chilean children living in poverty before our bicentennial (2010).

After ten months of work I thought it might be time to summarize part of our strategy, and our small –but nonetheless important- achievements, in case they help other people pursuing similar campaigns elsewhere. So here we go with seven ideas:

1. Unleash an appealing idea. The first thing you have to consider is this: the idea of every child having their own computer is a very disruptive one. It may sound common sense to most of us, but is definitely something that has only become possible in the last two years or so.

So, our first goal has been 'spreading the word': "Yes, we are not joking, we can really have one computer for every child in this country". And here is when we have to repeat again: this is not about OLPC's XO. It's about increasing children's opportunities with the help of ICT. We keep it children-centric and not machine-centric.

2. Align your appealing idea with broader policy issues. One of our main discoveries so far is that the idea of 'one computer per child' being only linked with education is problematic. Developing nations are not in a position to integrate these machines in their classrooms in a shorter period of time. I mean, full curriculum integration (a successful 1:1 model) is perhaps a desirable outcome, but it can easily take 4 or 5 years.

So we found a second way. A 'fast track' to OLPC based on one of the most serious problems in the Latin American region: inequality. The Chilean way to OLPC may be firstly a policy based on a principle of 'digital equality' and secondly based on an educational policy. It was actually President Tabaré Vasquez from Uruguay who first set this path. We consider is the right way to go.

3. Build upon your networks (your strength are your networks). So, you don't have money and want to run a national campaign to make your government buy thousands of laptops? And you don't even have contacts in government or in any influential circle? No problem. Someone in your network can help. Your network is your friends, and the friends of your friends both in the on-line and off-line world. You need to convince them about the 'appealing idea', that is, one computer per child. After that, everything seems easier!

4. Capture the leaders' imagination. As we are only a bunch of dreamers without any source of funding, our e-vangelization is actually a slow and time-consuming process. Thus, we have been forced to prioritize. For that reason, the single most important target audience for us has been reaching opinion leaders: politicians, key journalists, and members of influential groups. We go and talk to them. Some of them will get involved and will open other doors for you.

5. Be 2.0 (as much as you can). We at UCPN.cl are a content producer machine. Whatever we do is transformed into bytes: pics, videos, posts, press releases and so forth. And we also ask our network to do the same. This is the key reason to explain why we are among the top creators of OLPC and related stuff on the web. All what you read about viral marketing needs to be applied here, so this is the place to be smart and creative.

6. Form coalitions. During their first 10 months the campaign has been backed up by three web communities plus the student union of the oldest university in the country. Today, we added a new powerful allied to the cause: a coalition of widely renowned politicians.

It took us a couple of months but they finally agreed upon helping us. So now we are proud to announce that the Speaker of the House of Representatives and two high profile congressional representatives, all from different parties, have embraced our campaign goals.

7. Build a political consensus. As most of the readers of olpcnews know, it is not enough to have Negroponte shaking hands with Presidents. At UCPN.cl we believe we need to have a strong political consensus in order to infuse our goals with a sustainable long term perspective. So we are not only working with today's government but also to the next one.

Our strategy includes approaching future presidential candidates for the elections to be hold in 2009. Here the aim is straightforward: we want the idea of 'one computer per child' included in the candidates programs. In that way, whoever wins the election will take into the next administration our 'appealing idea'.

Tags: Chilean Children | Content Production | Luis Ramirez | Network Support | OLPC Chile | Political Consensus | UCPN |

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Lee Felsenstein's counterrevolution proclaim raises a moral duty we should all keep in mind. He is appealing to the global network of OLPC developers and supporters (Let's call them The Counter-Revolutionary Felsenstein Geek Army: CORFEGA) in an attempt to avoid a Microsoft takeover and save the original Open Source spirit of the project.

However, none of the counter-revolutionary efforts would ever happen if OLPC doesn't reach the 3 million orders. So let's be clear about that: The maximum priority for all the OLPC fans (including the CORFEGA forces)should be to get governments committed with the project. Now.

Both the changing production target and size orders bring an opportunity that must be seized. Let me explain you how I see the current scenario. I am Luis Ramirez, a member of the committee in charge of the citizen-led campaign One Computer Per Child (Chile).

In my short experience showing around the computer to government officers and politicians in Chile I've learnt that the Children's Machine XO is attractive enough as such. Everybody asks me the same question: Wow, this is amazing! When is going to be ready, and how can we buy it? Until now, the second part of the answer (a 1 million order) was the end of the conversation.

But if that restriction is no longer the case (now governments can buy 250,000 OLPC XO's), then a new wave of government talks should be initiated right now. All the people around the world that really believes in this project should be working hard on the political side of the campaign: lobbying, making press releases, signing petitions, and so forth. This is the most urgent task right now.

The success of the whole OLPC endeavour -at least at this stage- is not about software or hardware. It is about politics. With the 250k unit order a new economics emerges.

250,000 XO's optimistically can be delivered to most of the Latin American region at a price of $200 dollars (depending of many local factors, including trade agreements and their tax policies), which means a total amount of around $50 million dollars for the package.

Small or middle size countries now are going to be more willing to consider OLPC as an option. Let's take just one example: Peru, mentioned by Negroponte as a new potential candidate, has around 4 million students in primary education distributed in the order of 35,000 schools (official Census data).

In the year 2004 (latest statistics I found) Peru spent over 110 million dollars in goods and services for schools, including educational equipment such as computers. In the previous OLPC scenario, 1 million XO meant simply spending more than the whole budget for goods and services in just one item!

Still, $200 per XO is far away from many nations unless you split that expenditure up to four or five years (hopefully more). I believe this may be the case for the Latin American region following a Memorandum of Understanding between OLPC and the Inter-American Development Bank .

To have a wider picture, let's compare some data. The following graph (source) shows the average expenditure per student in several developing nations. For example, Peru spends $317 dollars per student per year in the primary education.

That includes from teachers salaries to chalk. With the new 250K unit order it is actually more realistic to, say (use your best Negropontian accent here): 'How about you increase in $40 dollars per year your expenditure per student over a period of five years and we give you 250k revolutionary green machines.

You can have them spread all over your nation in computer labs, say 20 per schools or, even better, cover whole schools and towns with this fantastic technology'. That's a good starting point, isn't?

Truth, most of these nations may need several years to get the whole educational system covered with OLPC, but surely they can start targeting the poorest schools in rural areas. In the meantime, Negroponte gets his 3 million production order, and so the whole project becomes something -finally- real. If that's the case, then by 2008 millions of kids will be playing around with XO's, hopefully Sugar-powered.

Tags: CORFEGA | Negropontian Accent | OLPC Chile | OLPC Peru | OLPC XO | Un Computador Por Niño |

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I am Luis Ramirez, a member of the committee in charge of the citizen-led campaign One Computer Per Child (Chile). One common mistake found when approaching OLPC campaigns is to think in terms of the wrong constituency.

The aim should always be to convince politicians (ministers or members of parliament heading the governmental coalition), and educators (in schools and in the ministry of education). The constituency that matters to those groups are the kids (schoolchildren) and above all, their parents which are potential voters. Geeks -broadly defined as IT enlightened people- are not in the equation.

But, how can they be left behind? After all, the advantages of the XO machines are so clear to the geek crowd. For them, OLPC is not less than their 'final fantasy', that is, the natural embodiment of a better world endorsed by mesh networking, limitless capacity to hack the code, and above all, a Microsoft-free environment. Yet, in principle, none of those things are a priority to the constituency that matters. They care about children, not about computers.

Accordingly, you can go and explain with a cheerful (but for most people tedious) discourse all the technicalities of this marvel of engineering. Yet, you will not get all the due attention from parents and educators. Make no mistake: Everybody is amazed by the XO, but unfortunately I still don't see dozens of developing nations running after Negroponte to be firsts to have it. What I see though, is every single developing nation trying to improve their educational system. That is what really matters.

For that reason, the Chilean campaign 'One Computer per Child' places the machine at the end - and not at the beginning - of our public discourse. We are usually talking about education, inequality, lack of opportunities, under-development, empowering kids, poverty reduction, reforming public schools, national competitiveness, and yes, computers as a tool to do just that.

We in fact use OLPC as the BEST EXAMPLE of the technologies available today for boosting children's education. But we are not focusing on the technical advantages of the OLPC project as THE central point of our campaign. Neither have we made a definite statement about OLPC as the only possible solution for our schools.

That's why we also welcomed Intel's Classmate. We are also endorsing similar efforts by other American vendors and international projects such as those announced in China and India.

Following this approach, we try to think in terms of the most anti-geek character you may possibly imagine. Something like those Aunties or Grannies that know almost nothing about computers but that clearly understand that they are important for the kids' future. We appeal to their common sense, not to their technical knowledge. And we tell them, just incidentally, at the end of our presentations: 'Have a look of this wonderful machine.

A group of the most intelligent people in the planet, led by a 'genius gringo', has produced this computer, which is entirely conceived to give the kids all the tools they need to get a better future'.

That is also the reason why we have sought a friendly iconic image to promote our campaign. We asked Lizette Greco, a Chilean artist based in California, to design something close to a mother, a kid and all their relatives ( which by definition is also close to politicians). The result was the lovely, super-cute and frankly irresistible Pudu.

And what exactly is a Pudu you may ask? Well, it is the world smallest deer, and lives in the Andean region between Chile and Argentina. That is, something we all know, we feel close to and that somehow is far away from the coldness of a computer.

So, for all the people from the Latin American region (or actually any developing nation) asking about our campaign and the way we promote the technical advantages of the XO machine, our suggestion, to sum up, would be this: Put the XO at the end, and place the kids first. Talk to the people that care about kids and then (if you have the time), talk to the people that care about computers. It may work.

This article is also published on Audentes Fortuna Iuvat.

Tags: Children's Education | Developing Nation | Geeks | Lizette Greco | Luis Ramirez | OLPC | OLPC Chile |

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I am Luis Ramirez, a member of the committee in charge of the citizen-led campaign One Computer Per Child (Chile) we have been working hard to make the a strong claim in favour of increasing radically the use of computer technologies in our country.

Currently we have a ratio of 30 school students per machine. The government has proposed improving it up to 10 students per computer by the bicentenary (2010). However, we are proposing a target of 4 kids per machine, which means adding about 1 million computers to the public educational system by that year.

That number is relevant because we have about the same number of kids living under poverty. The revolutionary invention behind the OLPC initiative can make that dream possible. Yet, the arrival of Classmate has changed the scenario in the South American region, and is becoming a solution that deserves to be seriously considered as well.

Here I would like to argue why is that the case and why we should not be embarrassed to considered a possible mixed strategy.

Tags: Classmate PC | Linux Generation | Luis Ramirez | OLPC | One Computer Per Child Chile | Southern Cone |

How about OLPC XO and Classmate PC? | Comment (13) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

Are you wondering what those crazy kids of OLPC Chile are doing now? You could follow them on their website, but why settle for plain text?

You can check out Eduardo Siva, the only Chilean with a Children's Machine XO and Leo Prieto play with an OLPC for a full nine minutes of video hilarity. And if you understand Spanish, you may even get the fly joke:

Tags: Children's Machine XO | Eduardo Siva | Fly Joke | Leo Prieto | OLPC Chile | OLPC Video |

An OLPC Chile Interview on Children's Machine XO | Comment (1) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

What would you do if you were the first person in your country to get a Children's Machine XO? If you were Eduardo Silva or his friend Carlos Verdugo and you were the fist people in Chile sporting an OLPC XO?

Why you both would blog about One Laptop Per Child of course! Even make a while OLPC Flickr pool too. And you can feel the excitement they have when Carlos Verdugo says (via Google translation):

Today I had a experience that I did not think that it would happen so soon.. I had the opportunity to have in my hands famous OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) or as we know it by these sides: Laptop of 100 dollars. This wonder appeared of the hand of Eduardo Silva, who is a young Chilean of Valparaiso that participated working for Google in the development of applications for this important project of Nicholas Negroponte.

Tags: $100 laptop | Carlos Verdugo | Eduardo Silva | OLPC Chile | One Laptop Per Chilean Child | Senador Fernando Flores |

One Laptop Per Chilean Child: Just One OLPC XO So Far | Comment (5) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It