1. Exploring, Sharing, Reflecting, Learning
One Laptop Per Child
Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Presentation:
Associate Professor Computer Engineering
Information Systems Department Institute of Technology
San Francisco State University
Banaras Hindu University, India
San Francisco, CA 94132 USA
Creative commons license
http://creativecommons.org/

2. Outline
Introduction Education Laptop Community

3. About myself

4. Disclaimer
● I do not work for OLPC!
● Volunteer, enthusiast, researcher,
developer
– Interests
● Free and Open Source Software and Content
● Internationalization/Localization
● User Interface Design
● Networks
● IT Sustainability

5. Disruptive
● OLPC: Excellent example of disruptive
technology innovation
– Education: learning is student-driven
– Hardware: sustainable computing at its best
– Software: power of Free and Open Source at
work
– Content: a public commons of content

6. Somebody is finally
thinking of the
children!

7. Education
● Its an education project, not a laptop
project.
– Nicholas Negroponte, Founder - OLPC
● OLPC's Goal:
– To provide children around the world with
new opportunities to explore, experiment and
express themselves.

8. A different generation...

9. School Galadima, Abuja City, Nigeria
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Galadima

10. Samkha village located in the suburbs of northern Thailand
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Thailand/Ban_Samkha

11. Khairat school is India's pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

12. Khairat school is India's pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

13. Khairat school is India's pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

14. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ulaanbaatar

15. http://www.reactivated.net/weblog/archives/2008/10/olpc-ethiopia-updates/

16. http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/2921143251/

17. http://www.buzzmoo.com/?p=257

18. Deployments worldwide
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Property:Number_of_manufactured_laptops

19. school...to go

20. Sugar: a different interface

21. http://laptopgiving.org/en/software-and-interface.php

23. Sugar
● Focus on activities, not applications
– “Write” a letter vs. “use” Microsoft Word
– Educational vs. Vocational
● Run your own Sugar environment!
– Download ISO image at
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LiveCD
– Burn to CD.
– Boot computer with CD. No installation
required!

24. Activities
● Write
– A simple word processor
● Chat
– XMPP based. Same as Google Talk
● Browse
– Firefox-based + flash + AJAX
● Record
– stills and video
More activities... http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities

25. One forward, One right
An interesting way to
draw a circle in TurtleArt
One step forward,
wait for one second,
one degree to the right,
repeat 360 times
The wait allows you
to see the turtle draw
the circle slowly
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Turtle_Art

26. the XO laptop

27. Laptop
● 7.5 inch diagonal screen at 1200x900
(200 dpi)
– Sunlight readable!
● Wi-Fi, USB, microphone, speakers,
camera, SD card slot
● Screen rotates to tablet mode
● Water resistant keyboard
● Dust resistant design

28. More laptop
● Laptop, turned on its head
– All electronics are in the upper section,
except the keyboard.
– Easy to replace components
– Carry handle also acts as base stabilizer
– Wi-Fi rabbit ears double up as latches and
increase range
– Any 11 to 24 volt power supply will do
● wall charger, car battery, crank/yoyo power, solar
panel

29. Yo Yo Charger
http://www.potenco.com/products

30. Hand Crank Charger
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/Hand_Crank

31. Solar Panel
5 Watt/14Volt panel
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Product_News#Solar_Panels

32. Green
● Looks green, works
green
– Fully recyclable
● 5 year life span
– Idle power
consumption
● Desktop – 80 watts
● Laptop – 25 to 60 watts
● OLPC – 1 to 8 watts

33. Power
● Batteries that last 4x longer
– Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4)
– Currently at ~ 5hrs, final goal ~10 hrs
● 0.1 watt in sunlight readable mode
● Running at full blast
– Wi-Fi, full backlight, camera, microphone,
speakers
– 7 to 8 watts

34. Mesh Networking
● Mesh does not require central hub-like
infrastructure
● Wireless mesh works even when the CPU
suspends
Based on an early draft of IEEE 802.11s

35. No moving parts
● No fans, no hard drive, nothing spins.
– 1GB Flash + 256 MB RAM
– USB storage
– SD slot
● AMD Geode processor runs cool.
– Does not need a fan to cool it off
– No air slots or ducts

36. Linux in the box
Fedora 7 and 9 based builds
Sugar runs on popular Linux distros

37. FOSS: Free and Open Source
● When the project started FOSS was the
only option that was flexible enough for
this project
● No vendor lock-in on formats
● No royalties on redistribution
● No discrimination based on fields of
endeavor
● Scalable global model for software and
content

38. FOSS makes it happen

39. Languages
Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian,
Aymara, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa
Melayu, Basque, Bengali, Bengali
(India), Bislama, Bulgarian, Catalan,
Chinese (China), Chinese (Hong Kong),
Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech,
Danish, Dari, Dutch, Dzongkha,
English, English (South African),
English (US), Estonian, Filipino,
Finnish, French, French (Canada),
Friulian, Fula, Galician, Georgian,
German, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa,
Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic,
Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kannada,
Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kreyol,
Macedonian, Malayalam, Maltese,
Marathi, Marovo, Mongolian, Nauruan,
Nepali, Norwegian, Norwegian
Bokmål, Papiamento, Papua New
Tutorial: Guinea Pidgin (Tok Pisin), Pashto,
Persian, Polish, Portuguese,
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/452 Portuguese (Brazil), Punjabi, Quechua,
Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sindhi,
Translate: Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Solomon
Islands Pidgin, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili,
https://dev.laptop.org/translate/ Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Templates,
Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu,
Vietnamese, Wolof, Yoruba, pseudo
L10n

40. Sugar Guidelines
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines

41. Activities, Not Applications
● There are no software applications. The
laptop focuses children around
quot;activities.quot;
● Activities are distinct from applications in
their focus —collaboration and expression
– Abiword becomes Write
– Firefox/Gecko becomes Browse

42. Presence
● Everyone has the potential for being both
a learner and a teacher.
● Employs a mesh network that
interconnects all laptops within range.
– Telepathy framework
● Telepathy-gabble for using a Jabber server across
the Internet
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Telepathy_Gabble
● Telepathy-salut for p2p/mesh collaboration
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Telepathy-salut

43. Tools of Expression
● The laptop is a quot;thing to think withquot;
● Principle of quot;learning through doingquot;
● Constructivist learning
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Constructivism

44. Journaling
● The concept of the Journal, a written
documentation of everyday events,
● Journal metaphor for the filesystem as our
basic approach to file organization.
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Journal

45. No XO?
● Sugar has packages for most popular
distros
● Sugar Build System
– jhbuild:
http://sugarlabs.org/go/DevelopmentTeam/Jhbuild

46. How can you help?
● Educators
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educators
● Translators
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Localization
– http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/452
● Developers
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developer
● Getting involved
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Getting_involved_in_OLPC
● Sugar
– http://sugarlabs.org

47. Contributor Program
● OLPC Contributor Program is designed to
get you a XO laptop in exchange for
contribution. The info you will need for
applying:
● Project
● Propose
Apply at:
● Other contributors http://projectdb.olpc.at/
● Audience or impact
● Brief description
● Relevant experience & other projects
● Contact information
● # of XOs needed, and their use

48. SugarLabs
● http://sugarlabs.org/
● An effort to take Sugar to a wider
audience
● PCs
● School labs
● Laptops
● Netbooks
http://flickr.com/photos/48600098314@N01/1949245574

49. Mailing lists
● Educators
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/educators
● Software Developers
– General development
●http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
– Sugar UI
● http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
All mailing lists are at http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/

50. Community lists
● Everyone
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-open
● OLPC India
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india

51. OLPC and the community
● Why community matters
– Local interest group
● BHU (IT, colleges and around)
– Volunteers
● Students, Staff, Faculty and private citizens
– Ownership
● Points of Focus
● Technology (Hardware, Software, Networks)
● Outreach (Community, Private citizens)
● Education (Schools, Publishers, etc.)

52. Bhagmalpur project
● Location:
● Village: Bhagmalpur
● District: Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh
● Nearest Railway Station: Shahganj
● Nearest Bus Stop: Banuwadeeh
● School:
● Classes: 1 to 8 class
● Children: 1087
● Teachers: 11
● Internet: none
● Computers: none

53. free, open, creative, meritocratic, peer-
reviewed, educational, innovative
you

54. free, open, creative, meritocratic, peer-
reviewed, educational, innovative
participate
you

55. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
--mohandas k. gandhi

56. Coming soon...
http://amazon.com/xo