Video: OLPC South Africa on TEDxSoweto

   
   
   
   
   

I'm Thulani from Kliptown in Soweto, and one of the proud members of the OLPC team in South Africa, which is one that tops the chart. So what I want to talk about basically is the project that you've been running in Soweto.

Of course it is the idea of Nicholas Negroponte from MIT in Boston, and so far we've got about 1,290 of these computers in Kliptown, of which they're all being owned by disadvantaged children. And the main purpose of this computer is to bridge the gap between disadvantaged communities and technology.

And what you've experienced is -- and let us just previous say -- there's a prominent school where we have deployed about 100 of these computers. And what you've been seeing there is a number of students now have studied to read as well as do their homework because we have digital textbooks which you can load onto the server where they can be able to access the books.

And as I said, there's about 100 computers, so each and every computer has an X and O sign. We call them XO computers. So that means that each and every child will have their own computer and you only have to know your colors to know your computer.

And we have given ownership to the children to own their computers. And I must say that by the time those students get to the eleventh or twelfth grade they'll be able to type their schoolwork as well as search the web because they'll can also connect to any wireless teleconnection all over, wherever you are.

And we also do a lot of deployments, so yeah, we will still be around so if you want to chat. Thank you so much for the time.

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