Hello Laptop Hello World (HLHW) is a Harvard student organization and nonprofit. Over the past year, HLHW has launched two successful local pilots in Boston and Cambridge elementary schools. See "Cambridge Friends School OLPC Pilot by One for All".

Smiles for OLPC Nicaragua

We are now expanding our outreach into the developing world through an international deployment trip to Nicaragua this January. We will be working with the InterAmerican Development Bank and the Nicaraguan Deaf Association to set up an XO laptop lab for deaf students.

We are collaborating with the Deaf Association to create an online database with videos of sign language. Additionally, we will be designing an XO application to establish and maintain this database.

HLHW strives to find ways in which educators can redefine the traditional bounds of the classroom, seamlessly integrating multimedia and digital exploration into curricula. In an age of rapid technology expansion, there is an unparalleled opportunity to eliminate the typical constraints faced by deaf people in the classroom. Technology is particularly liberating for deaf students because it gives them access to new modes of communication.

Due to poor detection mechanisms and a struggling education system, many deaf children in Nicaragua are lagging behind their hearing peers in school. Fostering a deaf community outside of the home is critical since most parents of deaf youth do not learn sign language.

The Nicaraguan Deaf Association is as much a community center as it is an NGO headquarters. Most students from local Managua schools spend their mornings at the Association, working with tutors on homework before heading to class. We will work with these students to enhance their computer skills, so that they may integrate technology into their daily lives.

We will also be using the XO laptop as a tool to develop a virtual sign language database. Disabled students are often left out of the One Laptop per Child equation, and we are exploring how to close this gap.

If you would like to donate your XO laptop to a deployment, we would really appreciate your consideration. Please contact MacKenzie Sigalos and Katelyn Foley to learn more about our project. Thank you for considering this request!

Katelyn Foley is with the Boston-based OLPC organization, Hello Laptop, Hello World (formerly One for All).