Four Ways to Own OLPC XO BTest-2 Technology Today

   
   
   
   
   

Are you excited by the clock-stopping hot OLPC XO technology like dual mode screens or instant suspend/resume? Do you want to be one of the lucky Children's Machine XO BTest-2 owners?

Since there are no OLPC eBay sales just quite yet, you only have four ways to play for your very own "$100 laptop":

olpc ownership
How did Mike Pirnat get one?
  • Join the OLPC Developers Program: If you are a free and open-source developer or research organization interested in contributing to furthering OLPC's goals, you can join the Develoeprs Program.

    There, in exchange for participating in the good, the bad, and the ugly process of hardware and software debug that computer system manufacturers hide from you, you could get your very own OLPC XO, like Eduardo Silva did.

  • Be a Participating Country Representative: If you are from an OLPC launch country, and you represent an educational or technology-related Ministry, you already have a few OLPC's. Brazil already has classrooms of OLPC's while Rwanda has four laptops for evaluation.
  • Start a pro-OLPC User Group: If you start a local FOSS user group that is focused on introducing one laptop per your country's children, you can petition OLPC for a laptop to help convince decision makers that Children Machine XO's are the way to go. OLPC Nepal is all over the country showing off their OLPC XO.
  • Win an OLPC Contest: If you entered the OLPC Game Design Challenge, you could have your very own OLPC XO next week. Then you could be like University of Adelaide student Joel Stanley. He won an OLPC last month, becoming one of only two Australian OLPC owners.
bad olpc posture
Btest-2'ing with bad OLPC posture
Of course, if you don't want to deal with buggy software and incomplete hardware, you need not wait long. Nicholas Negroponte just promised that we'll be seeing Children Machine XO's in everyone's future very soon, from Africa to Adelaide, according to The Australian:
OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte told The Australian the not-for-profit project, to provide every child in a developing country with a laptop, would be extended to nations with a high gross domestic product from as early as July.

"The program will go out worldwide within 60 days," Professor Negroponte said in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, attending the Education Without Borders conference.

"We'll be looking for expressions of interest (from Australian governments, business or non-government organisations) and that is a means for countries to request to be part of the program."

Sixty days from now means we'll all have one hell of a geeked-out May Day watching OLPC XO's roll out worldwide!

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3 Comments

The OLPC Motherboard is available NOW in the form of the Koolu.com computer - to ANYBODY - not just to people wishing they were kids or privileged developers.

the koolu.com computer runs OLPC software, because it _is_ the OLPC hardware. so it allows you to develop stuff NATIVE rather than emulated under vmware which is a piss-awful way of doing things because the emulated sound, networking etc. aren't up to scratch for things like games.

so.

there's a fifth way.

http://koolu.com

Hello, my name is Benjamin Gray. I work for an ISP in the south east (www.logicsouth.com) we are currently working with a company on providing computers and internet service to low income communities. We heard about the OLPC and would like to purchase around 100,000 the first year. Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Benjamin, private companies cannot purchase OLPC laptops. Governments purchase direct from Quanta, the laptop manufacturer.
Maybe better to purchase from koolu.com according to lukes comment above.

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