One Laptop Per Child News on Sales Talk

TurnYourWorldAround's Connect-a-Kid and the OLPC

Posted on May 05, 2008 by Jon Camfield in Sales Talk: Donors, Commentary: Press

Tara Suri in CosmoGIRL as "The Giver"

Tara Suri has recently launched TurnYouWorldAround.org and Aandolan.org (which means a movement for change in Hindi) is an organization that "implements social-change initiatives and provides youth with the tools to become changemakers." I don't want to spoil the surprise waiting for you if you explore the site for a few minutes.

TurnYouWorldAround - Aandolan's recent project is Connect a Kid, where youth can create projects to fund-raise for OLPC's Give Many program through their school, community, or just friends and family:

[Connect a Kid] is an initiative of Aandolan, an organization started by teens that provides youth with the tools to become change-makers. Having partnered with OLPC, [Connect a Kid] works to raise funds to purchase laptops, and also aims to raise awareness about the need for global education. Youth register --- and then work with friends and family to help kids around the world!

Tara Suri on CNN's YPWR

The website and information packet you get post-registration provide fundraising event ideas, action plan outlines, and other useful tools to create, promote, and evaluate project(s). The groundbreaking part of this is that it's a youth-to-youth program, empowering both the recipient of the XO laptop as well as the giver to realize their ability to organize and enact change.

CNN's YPWR (Young People Who Rock) has a blog post up about Tara, and now an interview at cnn.com/video

Disclosure: I work at Youth Service America, where Tara Suri is a member of the National Youth Council, a collection of amazing young people who make the likes of most of us tired with just seeing the amount of good they get done on a daily basis. She's a co-founder of HOPE (Helping Orphans Pursue Education) (when she was 13). She was also named Cosmo Girl of the year for 2007.

Tags: GiveMany Tara Suri ConnectaKid | TurnYouWorldAround | Youth2Youth |

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One Triumph Herald Rally to Mongolia for OLPC

Posted on March 03, 2008 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Donors, Countries: Mongolia

What are we doing?
The challenge is to drive from Coventry, UK to Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia in a classic car, a 1970 Triumph Herald 13/60 to be exact. With no back-up team, no GPS (or even reliable maps for some countries!) we'll be driving 10 000 miles, cross 5 mountain chains and 3 deserts, in a car that is 38 years old. Minimal comfort, bad roads and expected breakdowns that we have no choice but to fix ourselves with whatever we bring with us (ductape, stockings and a sledgehammer perhaps?)

Go speed racers, go!

So why are we doing it?
We are trying to raise a considerable amount for charity (that's where you come in). And have some fun, although that is a secondary requirement.

Who are we raising money for?
We have chosen to raise money for two charities, RNLI Lifeboats and Gemin-i.org. Both are amazing charities, the former saving lives around the British coast, and the latter improving education around the world, and this year, supplying OLPC XO laptops to schools in outer Mongolia and get them online and using their state-of-the-art online community Rafi.ki.

Gemini-I specialise in developing innovative web based solutions to improve education in the developing and developed worlds. It works at bridging cultural, religious and digital divides between disparate peoples around the world and lends a voice to young people, raising their concerns with policy makers.

All the money raised in 2008 will go towards getting children in the most remote parts of Mongolia connected to the rest of the world and using the Rafi-ki system, their state-of-the-art educational community. Rafi-ki is also used by primary and secondary schools throughout the UK, and in over 80 countries around the world.

How to support us
You can donate money directly to Gemin-i.org at www.justgiving/triumphrally. And don't forget to check out our progress on our team website, www.TriumphRally.org

Many thanks for your support, from the Not Yet a Triumph team: Chris Charlwood, Chris Raynor and Linda Sandvik

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How to Anger a $25,000 OLPC Donor

Posted on February 05, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors

Wthout a doubt, One Laptop Per Child has experienced quite a few difficulties in distributing XO laptops to the Give One Get One donors. And to an extent, we can excuse their errors.

OLPC's priority is getting laptops to children in the developing world and delivering 1,000 laptops to one country is easier than distributing 1,000 laptops to 1,000 individual addresses. But I wonder what the explanation is for Brent Oxley's experience?

I would also like to announce that I feel used, abused, and completely violated on a $25,000 donation hostgator made to One laptop per child. OLPC has a mission to develop cheap laptops for children to educate and express themselves on.

Brent is mad at OLPC because his company donated $25,000 to One Laptop Per Child during the G1G1 campaign, but only received an automated email response. When Brent followed up with surprise that such a cash donation was treated so casually, he asked a very pertinent question: "How many $25,000 donations do you receive?"

Working off G1G1 sales and donation numbers, OLPC received $2.6 million dollars in direct donations, in addition to the $32.4 million in G1G1 XO order pairs. Now much of that would be in $200 direct XO donations, easy enough to auto-respond to. But just how many people were like Brent, and stepped up with serious donations?

I know that in a traditional nonprofit organization, every $5,000+ annual donor is tracked with great care, and a $25,000 donor would certainly receive special attention. Sadly, it looks like OLPC has dropped the G1G1 ball in yet another area. Brent will not be a OLPC supporter in the future with OLPC's lack of follow-up:

Twenty days later and we still have not had a follow up response or anyone in the company making any type of contact with us other then what’s listed above!!!

Based on our experience it’s quite obvious OLPC is being mismanaged to the point of failure. I now feel our donation would have been put to better use had we mailed 25,000 one dollar bills for the children to use as toilet paper.

While I don't agree with his conclusion, I do agree with his frustration. From $250 to $25,000, OLPC has lost much support with its too-lean approach to donor relations.

Oh and as much as they mean well, emails from OLPC volunteers don't count. At $25,000, Brent should be getting a call from OLPC's leadership (Walter Bender, at least), thanking him and sending a free XO for his efforts. That would spur more good will and better OLPC press than randomly passing out seventy XO's to Linux Australia attendees, which is an insult to the G1G1 donors still waiting for their XO's.

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Re-Gifting Your XO Laptop to Benefit OLPC Developers

Posted on January 03, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: Nepal

Boomer's XO Going to Bryan

While it may surprise some, there are Give One Get One participants who feel that the XO laptop from One Laptop Per Child isn't right for them.

They could be parents who bought the XO for kids who wanted something else. Or adults who thought the XO would be a good business laptop replacement. And last but not least, people who believe in the OLPC mission but found the XO not suitable for their computer use case.

Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Boomer, a G1G1 donor who is sending me his XO laptop to re-gift it to a deserving OLPC developer group. I have the great honor of sending Boomer's laptop to OLE Nepal, one of the most innovative and organized local OLPC group.

While Boomer's XO is on its way to them, let's hear why he would voluntarily give up clock-stopping hot technology for free:

An interview with the originator of the XO regifting program.

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Umeebee + OLPC = Safe Place for Internet Kids

Posted on December 24, 2007 by Guest Writer in Internet: Access, Sales Talk: Donors, Use Cases: User Groups

I am Frerieke van Bree, a Dutch architect living in South Africa. In the last year, I started a project called Umeebee, which attempts to help children in Africa through education and by connecting them with individuals donors overseas.

When I heard about One Laptop per Child, I started thinking that to really help children in Africa (and all over the world), we do not need just laptops, donations, and teachers. What would really help those children is to get them connected with the rest of the world: to show them how a computer works and how to get on the Internet.

The idea is to connect them with people outside their world and to create a safe place for Internet users to communicate directly with children. We all learn and grow from each others' experiences.

Curious how to get those children in developing countries educated and online on their OLPC XO Laptop? Take a look at my video:

Want to spread the word about your OLPC-related project? Then write a Guest Post for OLPC News today!

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The Fridge Door: OLPC and Interactive Sponsorship

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Community, Sales Talk: Donors

Luis wants an XO laptop too!

Like many families, our fridge is a magnet for fridge magnets. One of those magnets is a 3x4 frame that holds a print of a smiling Luis.

Luis is a World Vision child, sponsored by my son, a university student who can barely manage to pay tuition, buy texts, house and feed himself – let alone sponsor a child.

So, in the end, he resorted to some creative sponsorship tactics - I ended up sponsoring him as the sponsor of the sponsored child – which leads me to the topic of this post: getting creative with charitable sponsorship.

As I read Robert Arrowsmith's "Mesh Networking XO Laptop Users – Globally" , it occurred to me that One Laptop Per Child, with its global reach, might offer an excellent opportunity for collaboration between the XO community and NGOs such as World Vision and its "Sponsored Child" program.

To be clear: this is not about purchasing XO laptops for World Vision.

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One Indonesian Laptop Payment Plan Per Family

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Sales Talk: Donors, Implementation: Plan

OLPC Indonesia

Now that One Laptop Per Child has started Give One Get One XO sales, its time to revisit the cost of the XO-1 laptop. According to OLPC, its $200 just for the laptop, if you buy at least 10,000. Now that doesn't even come close to the Total Cost of Ownership, which is upwards of $1,000 per laptop when implementation and maintenance costs are added in.

But for argument's sake, let's go back to the base $200 laptop price. And let's take Sumner Lemon's example of Indonesia, one of the world's largest developing countries with a population of 235 million:

Indonesia has around 40 million students and buying all of them a laptop priced at $200 would cost $8 billion, a sum that is 3.3 times larger than the money set aside for Indonesia's mandatory 12-year education program in the government's 2007 budget.

Now Indonesia is not alone in facing astronomical laptop costs when looking at a one-to-one distribution model when barely having a budget for current educational expenditures. So how can there be one learning laptop per child in such a populous country?

On this, I suggest that OLPC look to the wisdom of Intel's World Ahead program staff. Leighton Phillips, manager of Intel's World Ahead Program in Asia, introduced a simple, but effective idea to Sumner:

One possible solution is a monthly payment program where parents pay for subsidized laptops in installments over the school year. But families in developing countries are generally poorer than in other countries-- Indonesia's 2006 per-capita GDP was $3,900 compared to $43,800 in the U.S.-- and that calls for creative financing programs to cover the cost of the computers.

"There are potential subsidies and there are different ways this is happening; some of it can be government-led, some of it can be corporate-led," Phillips said. With subsidized laptop programs, families could be asked to pay $10 per month in addition to existing tuition fees and receive a computer.

Or imagine an alternate Give One Get One program. A global G25%G1 if you will, where relatively wealthy buyers of XO-1 laptops in the developed world pay a 25% mark-up on $200 laptops, with that $50 premium going to subsidize an Indonesian family's purchase of an XO on a payment plan.

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Refresh DC with a Technoliday Party Supporting OLPC

Posted on December 12, 2007 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

Justin wooing OLPC supporters

I am Peter Corbett of Refresh DC. All of my philanthropic efforts have focused on ameliorating the conditions of children in the US and abroad. So naturally, I've been closely following the OLPC Foundation's efforts in anticipation of when I could begin to lend so help to the cause.

I recently met Mr. Negroponte at a Newsweek Executive Forum on technology in education and was immediately inspired to do a fundraiser this holiday season to raise funds to purchase these laptops.

At the same time, as a tech community organizer in DC, I felt that this specific foundation was a perfect philanthropy for us to get behind through our Technoliday Party.

The Give-One-Get one program struck me as an opportunity to satisfy my and our community's desire to both help children abroad and at home. So, instead of one laptop going to children abroad, and one being kept by a US consumer, the second laptop is being donated through Greater DC Cares' network of qualified non-profits.

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XO Laptop Order Consilidation Mashup for Schools

Posted on December 11, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Community, Sales Talk: Donors

Make more kids happy!

This is Ajay Kumar, and I am going to talk today about a chicken and egg situation faced by the champions of OLPC at the grassroots level.

When we talk to the schools and the kindergartens, after a lot of skepticism, and answering a lot of questions, and showing them the sugar interface via virtual machine images, they are finally ready to try their hands on the OLPC. And they say, "I am happy to order 10 for a small pilot and if everything goes well, I would order for an entire class the beginning of next year".

The chicken and egg problem here is that they would not place a large order until they have tried their hands on some devices, and the project would not give them the devices unless they place a large order. While I can understand their aversion to risk, I can equally well understand that the OLPC's value preposition gets diluted if the entire ecosystem is not equipped with the devices.

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Exciting Updates About Give 1, Get 1 Going to December 31

Posted on November 22, 2007 by Christoph Derndorfer in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Laptops: XO-1

Earlier this morning Wayan mentioned that G1G1 was going global, if you can provide them with a shipping address within the US or Canada that is.

Additionally this morning OLPC issued a press-release that says that Give 1, Get 1 has been extended until December, 31st!

Now everyone can have one!

One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization dedicated to providing every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression, is extending its recently launched Give One Get One program beyond the initial two-week limited time offer through December 31, 2007, in the USA and Canada.

The extended period gives people more time to participate in this unique giving program and support the mission of One Laptop per Child.

But that press-release also contained another piece of very interesting information:

To date, donations to the Give One Get One program have averaged US$2 million per day.

Breaking down that figure reveals that about 5000 donations were made per day, which translates into 5000 "given" machines and 5000 "gotten" machines for a total of ~100.000 X0s purchased so far in the past 10 days. If you extrapolate those number until the end of the year we could see up to around 500.000 X0 sales just via G1G1.

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Give One Get One OLPC Tax Deduction Discussion

Posted on November 20, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

Of all the reasons to Give One Get One with One Laptop Per Child, did you base your OLPC participation on the G1G1 tax deduction?

For participants in the G1G1 initiative, to the extent your payment exceeds the fair market value of the XO laptop(s) you receive, you may be able to claim a charitable contribution deduction against your U.S.-source income. OLPC Foundation estimates that the fair market value of an XO laptop is $199.

While that was the least of the benefits for most geeks, apparently David DeJean is all about it:

Of the $399, you get credit for a $200 charitable contribution. Next April you can deduct that from your taxable income. If your tax rate is, say, 20%, that's a savings of $40, which brings the actual price of the XO laptop you receive down to $183.95. You even get a nice email from Nicholas Negroponte, founder of OLPC, thanking you for your contribution.

But before you start to itemize your 2007 tax deductions, you might want to think a little bit deeper about the fair market value of a G1G1 laptop.

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US-Vietnam 10,000 XO Laptop Purchase Problems

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Countries, Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Laptops: XO-1

A quiver of XO's please

I am Bill Singer, Project Director, E-Learning Vietnam Project, US-Vietnam Program. Bringing Education to rural Vietnam is part of the US-Vietnam Project charter. Providing laptops is a critical part of the Project and we are optimistic that the OLPC laptop will be part of our solution for delivering E-Learning.

Unfortunately, our initial experience with One Laptop Per Child where we attempted to order four laptops to evaluate as part of a 10,000 unit order revealed significant barriers in XO buying programs, order process and warranty and field service operations.

The following feedback is provided in order that One Laptop Per Child understands the US-Vietnam Project needs so the appropriate operating adjustments are made that enable a strong, effective working relationship.

Appropriate Buying Programs:
No one at OLPC had the time to deal with our 10,000 unit order and we were directed to the Give One Get One "G1G1" program. Simply put, G1G1 is not the approach appropriate for a large scale project like ours, which is to evaluate the actual OLPC laptop being manufactured today in order to insure that the laptop performs as advertised, and then and only then to make incremental purchases of 10,000 laptops for each phase of deployment.

Our request is for a buying program that anticipates this scenario. Current models for testing and phased purchases are a fairly standard approach to deployment in both private and public sector projects.

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OLPC News 100 Laptop XO Fundraising Drive

Posted on November 14, 2007 by Alexandre Van de Sande in Use Cases: Community, Sales Talk: Donors, Commentary: OLPC News, Laptops: XO-1

One Laptop Per Child XO-1

I believe that if you pick up some of the most pressing world problems, like poverty, corruption, tyranny, most solutions will need some of the same basic needs: easy and free access to communication, information, collaboration and education. Give power to anyone to record present facts, remember their history and broadcast their own voice.

Technology is one tool that can help do that. That’s why I have always been a believer in the power of giving access to computing power and to the internet to the more vast array of people possible, and that’s the main reason I support the One Laptop Per Child program. Now that OLPC has made the Give Many program easier to participate in, I have an idea that Wayan Vota and I want to share with you.

We are proud to start a fundraising to achieve the modest goal of equip one of the local initiatives we’ve been reporting for over two years. We present to you:

OLPC News 100 Laptop Fundraising Drive Let's raise $20,000 in donations for one hundred XO-1 laptops to be sent to the best locally-organized OLPC learning club! Donors

Pledge at least $100 on the OLPC News Fundraising Drive site
If/when we reach $20,000, vote for the best program to get laptops
If we don't reach $20,000, then everyone's pledge is nullified and we just watch others Give Many.

Local Programs

Organize a local OLPC learning club in your community
Send us a post on how you'd use 60 laptops to enhance education
If you win, pass out laptops with a smile

Now don't think we'll be passing out laptops to just anyone. Each local initiative will be debated on OLPC News based on what are the concrete realities and how well established is the curriculum implementation, power grid and internet access on each pilot.

After the vote by the donors, the winning group will get our 60 directed laptops, and we will ask OLPC to direct their 40 laptops to the second place group.

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My OLPC XO is ordered!

Posted on November 12, 2007 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA, Laptops: XO-1

I am Douglas Beagley, a raging XO fan and I called OLPC at exactly 6:00am. The phone was busy on my first three tries, but then I got through.

The operator sounded like a native English speaker who was not very good at taking phone calls, but it may have been a well-trained phone person whose native language was not English.

She followed a phone script on her screen TO THE WORD, which was kind of amusing as she stumbled over the carefully prepared introduction. She did a good job, though, repeating everything back to me, etc. I completed my order by 6:10am, and I have my confirmation number.

The only odd thing: She confirmed several times that I was participating in the "give one, get one" program. At the end, she added that she was confirming my tax-deductible donation of $399. If I am getting a laptop for my gift, then shouldn't my tax-deductible amount be half that?

It is possible that the tax-deductible donation amount really is $399, and that this is not a purchase at all, and that the laptop is technically a gift received because of my donation, in which case I am responsible on my tax form for taking off the value of the gifts given. I think that's the way donations always work, I've just never gotten a "gift" for my donation that was more than a coffee mug.

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OLPC Give One Get One Has Started!!!!

Posted on November 12, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Prototypes: OLPC, Countries: USA, Prototypes: XO, Laptops: XO-1

What are you doing reading OLPC News?! You should be over at Laptop Giving doing your Give One Get One geek duty! I just dropped $423.95 ($399 + $24.95 in shipping) for one of the first laptops ordered via the website while Jonah Bossewitch beat us all when he called the order hotline at 1am and bought an XO with the great motto - get em while they are hot! PS: I'll update this post as I develop more OLPC sales event info....

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OLPC XO Sales Commitments: Italy, T-Mobile, Hotsting.com

Posted on November 05, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Internet: Access, Sales Talk: Donors, Countries: USA, Laptops: XO-1

Congratulations to One Laptop Per Child in their efforts to secure XO laptop sales for the first production run by Quanta Computer. Over the last few days they have announced three major deals to expand OLPC's impact.

OLPC Ethiopia via Italy?

First, they now have the support of the Italian Government. Walter Bender says that:

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi reconfirmed his commitment of 50,000 laptops for Ethiopia while at a town meeting of over 600 people where Nicholas [Negroponte] presented OLPC. The importance of the funding is its exemplary nature - it is model for other European countries and the EU itself to follow. The clarity with which both the press and the audience understood children as our mission, versus a market, was refreshing.

Not to be a party-pooper, but it would be just as refreshing to have more clarity on Italy's commitment. We don't want this to be yet another opportunity for Nicholas Negroponte to learn that Presidents loving laptops doesn't equal Ministers buying XO's. After all, if Negroponte can bluff on XO production numbers, what is to stop Romano Prodi from bluffing on buying them?

Luckily, I don't think T-Mobile was bluffing when it announced a unique partnership with One Laptop Per Child:

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One Laptop Promise Per Mongolia Child

Posted on October 25, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Sales Talk: Donors, Countries: Mongolia, People: Negroponte

In the midst of Give Many participant, and he's a character.

OLPC donor John L. Thornton

John L. Thornton, Professor and Director of Global Leadership at Tsinghua University in Beijing and former President and former Co-COO of Goldman Sachs, so he's not only able to donate XO's, he also knows how to execute a successful implementation. And he is also an Intel director and Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Board, which makes his One Laptop Per Child connection all that more interesting:

President Nambaryn Enkhbayar of Mongolia announced today his commitment to provide every child in his nation with a connected laptop by the end of 2010.

As a first step toward making this a reality Professor Nicholas Negroponte, and Mr. Nyamaa Enkhbold, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, agreed to launch the OLPC initiative in Mongolia as early as January 2008 and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) thereof in the presence of President Enkhbayar.

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Why Give One XO-1 When You Can Donate 1,000 or 10,000?!

Posted on October 22, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: Price, Laptops: XO-1

While American geeks are debating buying an OLPC XO-1 laptop through G1G1 or a Asus Eee PC for $400 through computer retailers this Christmas, those with big hearts and bigger pockets can make the biggest impact with a new change to OLPC's sales strategy.

Gone is the myopic focus on their struggling government-only sales plan. Gone is even the need to go all G1G1 if you have a serious philanthropy purpose. According to Manusheel Gupta, One Laptop Per Child is now willing to work directly with high-net worth individuals, foundation, and presumably even nonprofit organizations - anyone with a $30,000 USD minimum commitment.

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Tags: Ajay Kumar | Implementation Plan |

Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of One Laptop Per Child's "$100 laptop" computer, the OLPC Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte.