One Laptop Per Child News

It's not all gloom and doom in this global recession. I have got a hot, hot job opportunity for the right uber-geek. If you've got the skills we have got the bills (or at least some bills). OLE Nepal, the NGO implementing Nepal's OLPC deployments in partnership with Nepal's Department of Education, seeks a new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to start in spring/summer 2009. Take note that this position is with OLE Nepal and not the One Laptop Per Child organization in Cambridge, MA.

Your Customers

The CTO oversees all technical aspects of the OLPC deployments in Nepal. This includes the development of interactive learning activities, an E-Library, a 4-person team of network engineers/sysadmins, and 11 wacky full-time volunteers. We don't want your charity. We will provide you with a salary that can support you and your family comfortably in Nepal. We prefer Nepali candidates but will consider talented applicants of any nationality.

What happened to the old CTO? I am firing him/me! I have immensely enjoyed my 2.5 years working in Nepal on this project and it is really gaining momentum here. Last year, we started the project with 200 laptops at two government schools. This year we will deploy several thousand laptops to schools across Nepal. We have a truly talented and passionate team here. I am leaving Nepal for personal reasons unrelated to this project.

Soft Skills:

• You really, really care about education, particularly at the early levels.
• You fail early and often. Over time, you fail better.
• You find localization problems for linux and various types of digital content fascinate you. You dream in Unicode.
• You not only believe in the Agile Manifesto, you live it.
• You love the Mythical Man Month so much that you have a picture of Fred Brooks on your wall.
• Bloated engineering frameworks like J2EE and SOAP make you nauseous. PHP and Perl make you feel good and kind of dirty at the same time.
• You have significant experience working with open-source communities. Your open-source colleagues describe you as "diplomatic" and "practical." They do not describe you as "vitriolic" or "religious."

Can you handle these guys?

Technical Skills

• You have a broad knowledge of web development
• You are an avid linux enthusiast. You have successfully compiled your own kernel or at least tried and failed several times.
• You have several years experience managing software projects. You are familiar with revision control systems, unit testing, refactoring, etc.

We want some with a tremendous passion for technology and education. You don't have to be an expert in any particular area but you have a proven ability to teach yourself new technologies.

If you're interested send your resume to jobs _at_ olenepal DoT org together with the following special assignments. I will not consider applications that do not complete these assignments.

1. Tell me all the ways I am screwing up as CTO and what I should do instead. don't hold back now. I am serious.
2. Tell me about one project that you completely screwed up and what you could have done differently. Tell me in gory detail what you did wrong. If you have never completely screwed up a project then you have never taken a risk. Save me the trouble and keep looking for a big corporate job.

Last but not least, working on OLPC isn't a job, it's a personal mission. If you're looking for a stepping stone to something else or a safe place to ride out the global recession, look elsewhere.

To learn more about OLE Nepal, check out our website, blog, and the wiki page for Nepal.

Bryan Berry is the co-founder and current CTO of OLE Nepal.

As part of a small personal project, I've been reading through the court exhibits presented in Comes V Microsoft. One of those exhibits is a chain of internal Microsoft emails discussing how to get Windows XP on the OLPC. In these mails, there is a "recap" (and some later email discussion) of a meeting between Orlando Ayala, Craig Fiebig, and Tom Phillips from Microsoft with Rodrigo Arboleda of OLPCA and Marcelo Calure of Brightstar.

A "realistic" XO laptop OS?

I am Jason Melton and I'd like to point out several things we learn in the recap:

1. Microsoft was already working directly with Hector Ruiz, the Executive Chairman of AMD to get XP on OLPC, and specifically planned on enlisting AMD to "shift Nick into a more realistic state on the Open Source philosophy."


2. The entire purpose of the meeting is to help get XP on the OLPC. It is not a negotiation and there is no one representing the OLPC Project's interests - in fact, Marcelo Calure is extremely candid with the Microsoft representatives, revealing financial information about the OLPC project, board member's leanings, status of project engineering, personal insights on Nick's psychology, and much more valuable information. It's important to note that at the time of this meeting, Microsoft was not in any way a partner to OLPC - internally Microsoft figures it has about a 20%-25% chance of being accepted, and as is shown in the accompanying email discussion, already has a plan to compete directly with the OLPC if the proposal is rejected.


3. Marcelo and Rodrigo further give specifics on how Microsoft should present its proposal, make sure Microsoft gets it to all the board members - presumably because they now know the board members that are likely to support it - and also further agree to review it. So, not only is this not a one-off meeting, but part of a continuing effort to assist Microsoft. (We also see in the email discussion that Microsoft has another meeting with AMD coming up.)


4. We also see what I personally consider one of the saddest things about the meeting: Marcelo and Rodrigo agreeing that Nick needs acknowledgement from Bill Gates - the impact of this would be "very significant". To address this, Microsoft plans to draft up an email for Gates to send - my man can't even get a real email. The cold identification and exploitation of a human weakness seems especially brutal to me.


5. There also a little suggestion of the old quid pro quo, where a contribution of $10MM-$30MM to the MIT Media Lab might not cause offense.

Microsoft's ultimate XO goal

After the re-cap there is some email discussion which is also illuminating. We see that Microsoft already has a back-up plan to compete with the OLPC:

"Remember that a key part of our strategy is to create a situation where even if Nick rejects us for philosophical reasons there is a long as visible history of our attempts to work with them and then we have to ask to get a license for the "open source hardware" and we will make our own offering on the commercial side."

The duplicity of Microsoft trying to create a "long and visible" record that directly contrasts the actual dealings may or may not come as a surprise to the gentle reader.

The quid pro quo is handled a bit more subtly inside Microsoft - naturally, as they're quite practiced - and we learn that Microsoft Research already intends to reduce MIT Media Lab funding, but has not done so specifically because they don't want to "disrupt the negotiations".

Finally, in case you think I've failed to mention it: there is never any talk of "the best technology" or "educating or empowering children" or "customers/governments want Windows" or any such merit-based discussion. Outside of a brief mention of Academic Software offerings - literally the very last thing in the recap and suggested by the OLPC faction - the entire discussion revolves around what benefits Microsoft, what might hurt Google, and exploiting inside information they have on the OLPC project and OLPC people.

"Of the Microsoft arrangement, Mr. Negroponte said: 'We've stayed very pure."
New York Times, May 16. 2008

Ah, it's nice to think so, isn't it, Nick?

During the Comes v. Microsoft court case, the discovery activity produced an interesting email exchange around Microsoft's attempt to influence One Laptop Per Child all the way back in October 2005. Reading the Microsoft emails about OLPC, I am not surprised at the level of fear that Microsoft had around the possible success of OLPC.

But I am surprised at the object of their fear - not Red Hat or FOSS, but Google. On October 17th, Will Poole said:

The fear: Google XO everywhere

"Clearly we don't want a world where we're flat footed as Google figures out how to give states or countries $x in hardware subsidy based on the devices being somehow locked to google search."

At the same time, it is evident that Microsoft did not get the focus of the OLPC project. Microsoft saw the XO as another hardware platform, like a "$100 laptop" that they could put XP, or even an "Education Open Source" operating system. They didn't see the XO as a learning platform, an education project, only as a platform to dominate.

One way they thought to get in on OLPC was to consider funding the MIT Media Lab. Another was to have Bill Gates call Nicholas to med the rift between the two men. But whatever happened, Microsoft did want to come out looking like it tried. On October 16th, 2005, Craig Mundle emailed:

The goal: Windows XO laptops

Remember that a key part of our strategy is to create a situation where even if Nick rejects us for philosophical reasons there is a long and visible history of our attempts to work with them and then we have to ask to get a license for the "open source hardware" and we will make our own offering on the commercial side.

Apparently, Microsoft's first attempt was a long meeting on Sunday, October 16th 2005, between their lead staff and Brightstar's President and CEO. Microsoft didn't have high hopes on a deal at the time:

In conclusion, going into the meeting, our confidence level in getting Nick to accept the Microsoft proposal was not high (between a 20-25% likelihood). Leaving the meeting, there were some points for revisions in our approach, but the net confidence level still remains relatively low.

Fast forward three years and look where Microsoft is now. We have XP on the XO, and because of that, a battle for the soul of OLPC. And one outstanding question: are Windows XO pilots more successful than Sugar pilots?

Special thanks to Jason Melton for the Comes v. Microsoft tip and help with transcription

A friend of OLPC, down under

1. Need in Australia - there are many children in Australia who are in serious need. Whether it be in remote Indigenous Australia, or living in poverty in metropolitan areas. Supporting projects for these children is a key goal of OLPC Friends for Australia, New Zealand and throughout the Pacific. The first Australian trial includes some children from extremely disadvantaged communities (including a remote Indigenous family) as well as typical kids to ensure that the technology meets both the specific needs of disadvantaged children as well as the typical education requirements of an Australian school. Details of this trial (including some videos and learning activities) are here.
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