Monthly Archives: March 2012

1 in 20 Latin American children use an OLPC laptop

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There are roughly 58 million primary school students in Latin America, according to UNESCO’s latest data from their Education For All initiative.   5% of children in that age range are not in school.  And 5% of them use XOs: 1.5 million children have their own, and Peru’s urban initiative is giving another 1.5 million students in urban schools access to XOs through a program where groups of 3-5 students share a laptop.

 

Today 4/5 of these students are in Uruguay, Peru, Argentina, and Mexico.   But new programs are growing rapidly, in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, and elsewhere.

That’s a lot of budding Pythonistas, Scratcheros, and Linux users!
Now if only my own home country would start providing computers and connectivity to its students as a matter of course…

Sonora State: Making connectivity a universal right since 2011

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In October 2011, Sonora State added the “right to connectivity” to the first article of the state Constitution, along with the right to liberty, education, and housing. They were the first Mexican state to adopt such a right, and one of only three states in the world.  People are still writing about it today as an example of how to provide effective access to knowledge – as debates unfold over how to keep the Internet open.

From the announcement last year:

La iniciativa que adiciona un párrafo segundo al Artículo 1° de la Constitución Política del Estado de Sonora fue promovida por los diputados Enrique Reina Lizárraga y Gorgonia Rosas López, a fin de transformar el acceso a Internet en un derecho o garantía de la ley fundamental local.

“Es decir, que el Estado deberá garantizar el acceso a la conectividad de redes digitales de información y de comunicación dentro del territorio sonorense a todos sus ciudadanos, pues este tipo de servicios cada día han logrado convertirse en un factor indispensable de cualquier ciudadano.”

In English:

The initiative, which adds a second paragraph to Article 1 of the Constitution of the State of Sonora, was promoted by representatives Enrique Reina Lizarraga and Gorgonia Rosas López, to transform Internet access into a fundamental right or guarantee of the local law.

“This means that the State must guarantee access to digital information and communication networks within the Sonoran territory, to all its citizens, because daily access to such a service has become indispensable for any citizen.“

 

Kudos again to Sonora for their farsighted planning.  They not only support free software as a foundation for learning, but  have recognized connectivity as infrastructure for modern life, and not a luxury.

Rodrigo discusses OLPC with Colombian paper El Tiempo

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Natalia Bonnett of El Tiempo interviewed Rodrigo last week about OLPC and its work in Colombia. From the interview:

“¿Cómo va el proceso aquí [en Colombia]?

En los próximos días, Itagüí será el primer municipio en toda Colombia que va a tener un computador para cada alumno de primaria. Es la primera vez que logramos romper el hielo. Ha sido muy difícil, probablemente no hay profeta en su tierra… También llegamos a La Macarena. Pero también hay casos de filántropos del sector privado o asociaciones como Asocaña, con quien próximamente llegaremos al Valle del Cauca. El Gobierno Nacional hizo un esfuerzo a través del Ministerio de Educación de proveer conectividad a las escuelas. Con una sola señal que llegue a la escuela, nosotros trabajamos por medio de wi-fi y lo único que hay que instalar son repetidoras internas dentro del plantel.”

In English:

“How is the process going here [in Colombia]?

In the coming days, Itagüí will be the first region in all of Colombia to have a laptop for every primary student. This is the first time that we broke the ice. It was very difficult, probably noone is a prophet in his own country… We are also heading to La Macarena. But there are also cases of private-sector philanthropists or associations such as Asocaña, with whom we will soon come to Valle del Cauca. The national government made an effort through the Ministry of Education to provide connectivity to the schools. With a single signal to the school, we can work via wi-fi and the only thing that needs to be installed are internal repeaters within the school.”

Uruguay is first to get the new XO-1.75: 60,000 new students to get laptops

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Uruguay continues to be a world leader in OLPC deployments. Today they become the first country in the world to receive the production run of the newest low-power XO-1.75, perhaps the lowest power laptop in the world.

Today at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank, OLPC and Plan Ceibal announced Uruguay will be the first country to receive the newest low-power model of the XO laptop. Uruguay began working with OLPC in 2007 and by mid-2010 achieved complete laptop saturation, providing XO’s to all 570,000 primary school children in the country. The project recently ordered 60,000 XO 1.75’s in order to take advantage of the many breakthrough hardware and software features in the new model.

“We are deeply committed to making One Laptop a Child a reality for all our children because we believe that digital fluency is essential to a 21st century education,” said Miguel Brechner, Director of the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay and in charge of Plan Ceibal. “The XO laptop empowers children by allowing them to explore the world, be creative, learn by doing and collaborate and share with their classmates and communities.”

During its 2012 Annual Meeting in Montevideo, representatives from the Inter-American Development Bank will visit several schools to see how children and teachers are integrating XO laptops into their classrooms. The XO 1.75 provides significant advances in technology that reduce power consumption and make the laptop more rugged for children’s use. This is the first laptop from OLPC to incorporate an ARM-based processor from Marvell, which has collaborated closely with One Laptop per Child on technology development.

The Marvell Armada 610 processor in the XO 1.75 uses very low power, 4 Watts when in use and 200 milliWatts when idle — which is a quarter of the power consumption of most processors on the market. Power consumption is a major challenge for laptop deployments in remote and rural regions where electricity is scarce or non-existent.

The XO 1.75 will also feature a new operating system release with the newest version of the Sugar learning environment. Developed under OLPC’s leadership with contributions from the Sugar Labs and the global Sugar development community, the new version of Sugar includes significant improvements in usability, performance and easier self-discovery of how Sugar works.

“We salute Plan Ceibal for its leadership in providing all Uruguayan children access to a modern education,” said Rodrigo Arboleda, Chairman and CEO of the One Laptop per Child Association. “Uruguay is a great example of a well-planned, well-executed deployment that is having a positive impact on children’s educational development.”

How to buy XOs in quantity

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We recently posted a wiki page summarizing XO prices (roughly $185-$205 by quantity), and how to get XOs for your own deployment: Buying XOs. The minimum order is 1,000, with occasional exceptions made for orders as small as 100.

In addition to our national partnerships, OLPC regularly sells XOs to groups all over the world who are running pilot programs in their district or community. While we do not often sell in quantities of less than a thousand laptops, exceptions are made for programs that have planned for a successful deployment. (And we feature some of the best-planned grassroots programs here on our blog!)

For groups working in war-torn or post-conflict regions, we may also be in discussions with aid groups who could help support a program. Feel free to get in touch with us if you are planning a sizeable project in these regions. For more information or to place an order, email us at countries@laptop.org.

Peru UPDATE : El Comercio imprimirá gratis material escolar quemado en incendio

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500,000 books for early primary students – many in indigenous languages and not widely printed – were destroyed in last Thursday’s warehouse fire in Lima, affecting up to 250,000 students who were to receive new books this term.  The national newspaper, El Comercio, has offered to reprint the books for free on newsprint — or at least their first chapters — so that children can have texts during the coming weeks as new books are organized. They are coordinating this with the Education Ministry. Publishers and authors who wish to donate materials to be printed are invited to contact their team directly.

El Comercio va a imprimir en papel periódico los primeros capítulos de cerca de medio millón de los libros quemados para que los escolares puedan iniciar el año escolar y cuenten con material hasta que el Estado resuelva el problema”, dice Francisco Miró Quesada Rada, director de el Diario.

Si quiere realizar donaciones puede llamar al teléfono [+51] 311-6500
o escribir a vhelou@comercio.com.pe y aescarate@comercio.com.pe