Posted on June 08, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Countries: Peru

Remember when you first heard about One Laptop Per Child, and you started to visualize thousands of "$100 laptops" going to poor children in the developing world. What was one of the first concerns that came to mind? Maybe "XO theft"?

olpc theft
You stealing that XO?

Nicholas Negroponte likes to dismiss this concern with his "post office truck" anti-theft logic as told to the World Bank:

there are thousands of cars in the United States stolen each day, but not one single post office truck has been stolen in the history of the United States. The reason is that there is no secondary market for post office trucks because they look like post office trucks.
Well with all the hype around XO laptop distribution in Peru, it looks like his belief in distinct looks to safeguard laptops isn't holding up. Just a month after distribution, we have a OLPC armed robbery:
Three armed criminals robbed this morning 66 [XO] laptop computers for the school No. 31939, located in the human settlement of San Pedro, El Tambo district in the province of Huancayo, Junin, reported police sources.
I wonder if, in the midst of tying up and beating the guard during the larceny, the perpetrators concerned themselves with Bitfrost? Or as Eduardo Villanueva Mansilla pointed out, often in poor countries, crime is a mixture of vandalism and actual stealing of anything that can be re-sold. And it doesn't take that much a criminal mind to realize XO's have re-sale value, one of the G1G1 unintended consequences.

While these specific laptops may be quickly replaced by OLPC in Peru, the innocence of XO distribution is now lost forever.

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Posted on February 15, 2008 by Edward Cherlin in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Price

Non-profits are, in law, permitted to make a profit, though few do. The legal restriction is simply that profits may not be distributed to investors, so a non-profit doesn't have shareholders. Why might a non-profit want to profit?

Well, of course, most don't. In particular, Nicholas Negroponte is determined not to make a profit on the OLPC XO laptop, which some will see as entirely laudable. I don't, as I will explain.

No Profit Impacts

Now, it's true, OLPC charges governments $1 over cost, and the Give One Get One program charges $199.50 each for two XOs that cost $178 or so at the factory. That's not what industry considers a profit margin, since it doesn't even cover basic expenses like customer support, and that's where my argument begins.

olpc $100 laptop

G1G1 customer support is abysmal.

  • Misaddressed packages due to faulty software design in the fulfillment system. (If you entered Company Name and Street Address on separate lines, the second got dropped, and the shipping company sent it back. The workaround was to abbreviate the company name and squeeze both into one line.)
  • Customers whose XOs came back were not notified.
  • No responses to e-mails.
  • Spending 45 minutes on hold to talk to a person.
  • Taking more than a month to figure out how to ship to Canada.
All of this is done in the name of sending everything possible to poor schoolchildren, as the name Give One Get One makes abundantly clear. Certainly it is an important measure of conventional non-profit performance to look at how much money goes to the people to be helped, and how much goes to office expense, salaries, raising more money, etc.

But OLPC isn't a conventional non-profit, and shouldn't think of itself that way, IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion).

Where to Spend Profits

Now I'm not suggesting that OLPC simply go corporate. One of the reasons why the XO is less expensive than the alternatives is that OLPC is a non-profit, and many of the people there, including Nicholas Negroponte himself, work as volunteers. As do I (although I have applied for a paid position).

I am suggesting that OLPC talk to some people at MIT's Sloan School of Management (not just to other geeks) about a financial framework that would pay for necessary expenses such as documentation and customer support. Or maybe to Presidio School of Management, which offers a Sustainable MBA. Whomever.

olpc screen in sunlight

It is true that a requirement for documentation can be seen as a design failure, as discussed in The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman. It is true that a major goal of XO design is to make things as discoverable as possible. Mostly.

But the XO has non-discoverable features. Easter eggs, even, like an instance of Conway's Game of Life, activated by holding down a button at boot. Inscrutable command-line functions such as yum and xo-get for installing software. Entirely non-obvious features of the Journal, and of a number of activities.

So it is vital that the XO is starting to get incomplete and not totally accurate documentation, such as the Getting Started Guide. And that people are working on many other documents, many listed on my OLPC Publications page on the Wiki. In particular, we need a visual hardware repair manual and a book on discovery on the XO to make the case that children can learn to use and repair XOs themselves.

These are important because you can't just tell people such things. You have to have a convincing demonstration. We also need a book inviting teachers and parents to discover the joys of the discovery process and its effectiveness in real education (not just scoring high on standardized tests).

Make Some Profit

So I'm talking about raising the price of the XO somewhat. I predict that Wayan is not going to be happy with me, because he complains about every bit of cost associated with the laptops. But my argument to Wayan, as it is to OLPC, is that profit is a necessary part of the process.

Moderate profit, not monopoly profit, extracting as much money as possible from a market. Profit means that we won't have to behave like other NGOs, always begging for money.

Profit means that we can fund everything else needed to start the virtuous cycle of getting people out of poverty so that they can invest in themselves and their children and their communities. Profit also for the students and their friends and relations, using what we sell to start new businesses, and even new sectors of their national economies.

olpc $100 laptop

Profit means that OLPC, or somebody, can provide the whole world with the technologies needed for clean water, and health care, and in fact all the rest of the UN's Millennium Development goals, and much more besides, and start all of the developing countries that are willing on the path to sustainable (tricky, that, but that's for another day) economic parity.

As long as it is profit on all sides, as in a genuine Free Market, and not profit extracted from the public against its will, as in Laissez-Faire Capitalism, which is currently masquerading as Free Trade. Free for corporations but not for citizens doesn't cut it in reality, and citizens shouldn't stand still for it.

Profit is not Evil

The most fundamental principle of Free Markets, even before the principle of equilibrium of supply and demand, is that in an unforced transaction, both sides gain. I sell you, or trade you, something I don't need in exchange for something I want more, and you do the same on the other side.

You get something that has a greater value for you than for me, at a cost somewhere in between. So we both make a profit, because we each get a value to ourselves greater than the value of what we offer in exchange. This is kindergarten economics, at the level of the classic Lemonade Stand game. (We can talk about how to teach it in kindergarten another time.)

In fact, one of the most important functions of the XO is to bring people into markets that were previously closed to them, to give them the means of production for the information age, to enable them to collaborate, and in so many other ways to trigger a previously unimaginable wave of economic and social development.

I am well aware that some of my readers and some of the armchair analysts cannot imagine this. I am certain that I cannot convince some of them. However, I expect that events soon will speak on this matter far louder than any of our words.

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Posted on December 13, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

caffeinated coding
X0 computing with coffee

The folks running the OLPC project, to the joy of many, have not only retreated on their initial plans to make none of the XO laptops available to paying customers in First World countries, but have extended the window in which anyone who can finagle a Canadian or U.S. mailing address can finally order one.

If some back-of-the-envelope calculations are right, G1G1 machines in aggregate already constitute the 2d highest "order" placed yet from OLPC, and rising. (The customers are called "donors," it's true, and it's a tribute to OLPC that many of us think the XO seems to be a bargain as a product at more than twice its manufacturing cost.)

In what seems to this armchair quarterback a titanic marketing blunder, though, even the revised order period for the Give One Get One (G1G1) program seems certain to exclude a huge number of enthusiastic would-be buyers.

I'm talking Starbucks Envy!

Those of us with a "Day One" XO-1 expected sometime before Christmas are unlikely to keep it under wraps: I know I expect to use mine at Borders bookstores and at Starbucks, at the very least.

I'm not even a big fan of Starbucks, but I know they dispense caffeine and host T-Mobile hotspots, and the year of T-Mobile hotspot access that comes with the machines is a major selling point. Not that they're absolutely everywhere yet, but no-charge WiFi access points are ever more common, too, from Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market to highway rest stops in Texas, not to mention well-equipped libraries all over the country.

The XO is light and sturdy, is suitable for reading in brighter light than any laptop I've ever owned, is distinctive in color and shape, and has a generous battery life and advanced WiFi reception: in short, it's the perfect public computer, and it's hard to mistake for anything else.

Some significant portion of the coffee-drinking public will want one, even if they don't yet. Face-to-face contact really is critical. (The public has been primed to look for OLPC laptops, too, with a surprising amount of mainstream media coverage fixated on the hardware as well as the vision for a connected world of kid-centric, computer-aided education.)

That means that I fully expect my XO (and all of the others out there in the wild) to draw interest and questions. Anyone with an XO at mid-December who uses it outside his house I think should brace for a string of questions, from mundane ("What is that thing, anyhow?") to philosophical ("Is that really a worthwhile project for places where poverty is severe and chronic?") to utterly practical ("Where can I get one of those?").

caffeinated coding

Expanding the G1G1 Message

It's this last one where the G1G1 program is missing a gigantic opportunity by cutting off sales just when most orders are probably still in transit, but a slew of first-day enthusiasts will be finally able to show off the goods to anyone interested.

Early, optimistic adopters are well and good, but if OLPC could see fit to open that order window a few more weeks at least, the G1G1 program might just see a rush of orders.

From people who see their neighbor's XO, or notice that the guy with the funny green laptop sure had good WiFi reception in the airport lounge, or wish they could read books on a daylight readable screen without being tied to a single-purpose e-book reader.

That's what I mean by Starbucks Envy -- seeing the XO in action is going to trigger some well-justified desires to have an XO, both for adults and for their kids. I plan to have a few OLPC information sheets with me to hand out to anyone who seems intrigued; the scope of OLPC, and the innovations of the hardware in the XO, defy 10-second explanations.

I've made these information sheets, XO Flier Jpeg and OLPC Flier PDF. Then Ian Issitt made this one and Fricka made a colorful G1G1 flyer.

Where is yours?

This story was submitted by Tim Lord, a law student at Temple University in Philadelphia. You too can write for OLPC News today!

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Posted on December 09, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Competition

Nigeria OLPC
OLPC target XO user
I am Carolyn Turbyfill. I believe the OLPC project is one of truly good intentions. It has also become a disruptive technology in a wonderful way.

Now there are two issues floating around the One Laptop Per Child community that have legitimately engendered debate.
  • What is the proper product for the OLPC target customer?
  • What distribution channel is the best way to get laptops to the target customer?
The first question is epistemological question. Do you truly understand the target customer? What infrastructure does the customer have in his environment? I'd love to get some transcripts of first hand interviews with children who are using the laptops and what they think.

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Posted on November 26, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Internet: Access, Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

olpc $100 laptop
In the midst of the OLPC tax deduction discussion commentary, Aaron Peterson altered me to an interesting way to make the One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One drop the price of the XO laptop to $100: sell your HotSpot access.

Let's do $100 laptop math:
  1. Buy an XO laptop via G1G1 for $400
  2. Sell your T-Mobile HotSpot access code for $300
  3. Your XO laptop final price: $100
Better yet, you can follow the lead of others, and eBay your XO for $600, pocketing a sweet $500 per laptop.

Repeat a few hundred times and you've made your bank for Christmas shopping and helped spread technology to children worldwide.

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Posted on November 23, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Austria, Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Products, Countries: USA

official olpc t-shirt
Official OLPC T-shirt, modeled
In the midst of your Black Friday shopping spree, don't go spending your entire Christmas budget buying XO laptops on eBay. Do hold back a buck or two for the other geek must-have this shopping season: OLPC T-shirts and laptop bags.

First up, Todd Kelsey put together a CafePress shop with OLPC logo t-shirts. Nice but they'll never make you look geek chic hot.

That can only be achieved if your attire is distinctive like a Tuquito t-shirt that I've wanted for a few months now, or OLPC Austria's black is the new black XO logo understatement.

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

olpc irs
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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Posted on November 08, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

olpc xo g1g1 start
Did you pre-register for Give One Get One like I did? If so, you are receiving an OLPC email today announcing that:
Starting Monday, November 12 at 6:00am EST, you will be able to donate one XO laptop to a child in the developing world and also receive a laptop for the child in your life, by visiting www.laptopgiving.org or calling toll-free 1-877-70-LAPTOP.
Now we know exactly when G1G1 will be starting, and its even earlier than OLPC telemarketers predicted, which is great. Now we can all have a pre-work XO-1 buying orgy and start the day with a smile for two reasons. First, T-Mobile's HotSpot commitment was detailed in the email, and it makes an XO-1 buy worthy just for the connectivity:
Additionally, T-Mobile is offering donors one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations throughout the United States, which can be used from any Wi-Fi-capable device, including the XO laptop.
.

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Posted on November 05, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

olpc g1g1 sales
Is G1G1 right for her?
I am Mark Engelberg and I'd like to remind everyone that the XO laptop was designed with the developing country in mind. Those of us who have been following the XO laptop closely understand that it has some exciting, cutting-edge technology (for example, the screen, the mesh networking, long battery life, a UI specially designed for kids). And yet we also realize that it is not designed to be a perfect fit for American techie kids (little memory, slow processor).

In seven days, tech geeks all over will the U.S. will be thinking about whether to buy an XO laptop for themselves and/or their kids, along with purchasing a laptop for someone in a developing country through Give One Get One. I'm very excited about this prospect, and have been telling everyone I know about this unique opportunity to get some cool technology and contribute to a good cause. But much more information about the XO laptop needs to be provided before I or anyone else is likely to buy it.

American consumers already have a lot of existing technology. We want to buy a device that works well with this technology. Our kids are tech savvy. Despite Nicholas Negroponte's comment that kids in developing countries don't need a spreadsheet application, our kids may very well need spreadsheets and other more sophisticated applications than what comes natively on the XO. Our kids manipulate and share large media files. Also, Americans have a lot of choices.

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Posted on October 23, 2007 by Jon Camfield in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: G1G1, Implementation: Plan

olpc icon
OLPC XO is unique for now
Wayan has been rightly concerned about grey market leakage of XOs from countries to the US, due to the high demand for One Laptop Per Child computers. Another ongoing concern has been in-country theft, misuse, and redirection of the laptops to users other than the intended children.

The first problem has been mitigated by the G1G1 sales in the US, and the theft problem is solved by both the bitfrost security platform and the distinctly green-colored and unique design of the laptop. Reason goes that if you see an OLPC-looking laptop being used by anyone who's not a child, it's been stolen or otherwise coerced from its rightful owner.

Unfortunately, the G1G1 solution plugging the developing world to first world leak has opened up a new leak. With this, it is possible for someone in a country where the children have XOs to legitimately buy a G1G1 laptop through a friend or organization in the US. In fact, many schools and non-governmental organizations worldwide may find US-based organizations to buy a small number of G1G1 XOs to use if their country is unwilling or unable to afford a mass XO purchase; it is unrealistic to think that the G1G1 laptops will stay only in the US.

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Posted on October 11, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Countries: Nigeria, Implementation: Plan, Implementation: Schools

I am Anders Mogensen, co-founder of Seismonaut - a Danish idea and innovation consultancy. At Seismonaut we map emerging technologies, new media and user trends in the changing global landscape.


ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo
A few weeks ago I was in Nigeria taking a closer look at the OLPNC (One Laptop Per Nigerian Child) initiative. During my five day visit I had the opportunity to meet with the key stakeholders in Abuja, and pay a couple of visits to L.E.A School Galadima.

Over three days, I am sharing some of my findings in short write-ups. One Laptop Per XO'ing Child with OLPNC was the first one, OLPNC Galadima School Headmaster Interview was the second, and this is the third installment:

The Nigerian One Laptop Per Child Model

Yes, Olusegun Obasanjo the former Nigerian president did have influence on the OLPC XO-1 color scheme, so I am told by a reliable source in Abuja. And according to the same source Obasanjo was and still is very committed to the OLPNC project. But what about the 1 million laptops which apparently were ordered by the former Nigerian president?

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Posted on September 10, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Countries, People: Negroponte

Back when Nicholas Negroponte first introduced the idea of a hand-cranked "$100 laptop", the One Laptop Per Child organization was formed to develop and promote the idea of one-to-one computing for children using low-cost, rugged laptops sold only to governments for distribution through school systems.

At the time, the idea was visionary, the price point was revolutionary, and for the first time, big technology companies felt secondary. Now fast-forward to fall 2008, and the whole global mind-think around technology has changed.

No longer is low cost computing in education a fantasy, no longer are big technology companies secondary, and everyone wants to sell technology into classrooms. Intel introduced Classmate PC to Brazil, Asustek is selling Eee PC's in the USA, and even thin-client manufactures compare themselves to OLPC.

But where are the One Laptop Per Child-arranged governmental orders? Where did Ministers buy XO-1's so that whole cohorts of children are "learning learning" on clock-stopping hot technology? Not just pretty photo ops.

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Posted on September 07, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Competition, Implementation: Plan, Commentary: Press

stephen dukker
Stephen Dukker
Stephen Dukker, chief executive of NComputing, has a serious hating on One Laptop Per Child, but for all the wrong reasons.

In August, when I read his rhetorical proclamation "Is the OLPC project doomed to failure?" I thought he was going to hone in on any number of Nicholas Negroponte's grand proclamations that are slowly showing false, like governments should buy millions of computers without first pilot testing, there's no need for an implementation plan, or children can learn learning without teacher training.

But instead, the former chief executive of eMachines took a whole other angle to try and knee-cap "$100 laptops":
Helping people in the developing world cross the digital divide is a fundamental act of decency and generosity... As laudable as this dream is, the ideal unfortunately runs counter to a fundamental fact of life: a computer cannot exist independent of basic economic realities.

A computer is, rather, a creature of connectivity and collaboration. And, given the economic realities in the developing world, $200 computers cannot generate the profit essential for the creation of a robust IT ecosystem, which is essential to ensure successful deployment, ongoing operation and maintenance.
While he's right to say a computer needs a whole profit-driven ecosystem of support, from maintenance to connectivity, he's apparently not heard of DVD players, cell phones or radio if he thinks that electronics require a $200+ price point to generate a healthy professional services around them.

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Posted on August 30, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Competition, Commentary: Press

gphone + $100 laptop
Much is being made of Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins' comments that his "Deep Throat" connection on the Google gPhone says:
the thought process behind [gPhone's] functionality is less about beating the iPhone and more about beating the $100 Laptop, which provides a huge clue behind what will be the pricing structure on this.
There are those, like Om Malik, who are frothing on about how that comment must mean that Google is going to compete with One Laptop Per Child, a program it sponsors:

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Posted on July 15, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Intel, People: Leadership, Prototypes: XO

intel vs olpc
OLPC XO and Intel Classmate PC!
Wow, look what can happen when you're offline a day flying home from Lebanon via Frankfurt: Intel Corporation agreed to join One Laptop Per Child's Board of Directors as the 11th member, focused on exploring collaborations involving technology and educational content.

First off, I am not surprised at the move. Last month I was surprised by a call from the OLPC leadership looking for contacts at Intel they could talk with about ending the public feud between Nicholas Negroponte and Craig Barrett. I was asked to keep the call quiet, and I did, for I think overall, the very over-hyped squabble was distracting for everyone involved with low-cost computing for the developing world.

But the direction of that call, OLPC looking for Intel contacts, colors my impression of the Intel + OLPC agreement. I don't see Intel joining the OLPC Board as The Register does, Negroponte didn't shame Intel to do anything, but Ashlee Vance was right in downplaying Intel's excitement over working with OLPC.

Intel + OLPC was a move of convenience for Intel, but desperation for OLPC, and Intel's direct involvement will degrade OLPC's independence and reduce its impact on computing in the developing world.

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Posted on July 12, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Hardware: Peripherals, Sales Talk: Price, Sales Talk: Products, Hardware: Screen

Looking at the One Laptop Per Child product roadmap slide that Digitimes captured at Mary Lou Jepsen's keynote presentation at the International Display Manufacturing Conference (IDMC) on July 4th, I was struck by a vision on independence. Just look at the slide - do you see the same vision that I do? A vision of OLPC financial independence!

Do you see what I see? Do you see the One Laptop Per Child Foundation shifting the $30 Billion dollar cost burden from participating countries, all of them financially challenged beyond the capacity to buy one computer per child? Do you see all those commercial products?

We can always start with a commercial version of the OLPC itself, as many of us already have, in our dreams. An XO stepped up to adult computing needs, but sill not the bloatware of a Wintel set-up, priced per the slide at $1,000, but built using the XO cost methods. Right there, OLPC could rack up per-computer profits to buy a whole country's worth of Children's Machines.

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Posted on July 02, 2007 by Guest Writer in Commentary: Academia, Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Donors

Nicolas Negroponte’s claim that One Laptop Per Child is an education project, not a laptop project is well known and often discussed. What is less well known is his claim that OLPC is about eliminating poverty:
"But what One Laptop Per Child is, it's about eliminating poverty. And that's the reason we do it, that's why everybody who's involved in the project is involved with it. And the belief is very simple.

That is that you can eliminate poverty with education, and no matter what solutions you have in this world for big problems like peace or the environment, they all involve education. In some cases, it could be just with education and in no case is it ever without education. And we particularly focus on primary education."
As I mentioned in my last posting, OLPC and Education Reform, I am Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D., an international consultant on technology in service of developing countries. I have just returned from Kenya where I had an opportunity to reflect on this claim that OLPC eliminating poverty.

For the past two years, I have been working with the Education Committee in Sauri, a set of rural villages of about 5,500 people in western Kenya. I have served as a pro bono (or should that be pro-Bono) consultant to the Committee members as they formulated their plans for a community learning resource center. I have also supported their efforts by donating a dairy cow to the school lunch program, providing scholarships, and purchasing equipment and supplies for the center, including books, a digital camera, and a laptop.

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