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OLPC Association Newsletter – Summer 2012
1
One Laptop Per Child is part of Rwandan 1st Public Library ever
In his speech, the Minister of Culture and Sport said that “ One Laptop Per Child program is key project with a radical impact to eradicate the lack of a reading culture and writing in Rwandaâ€. Arriving at the library entrance, the first thing you notice is a very nice premise with a larger picture of Rwandan kids using OLPC laptops. That is the outside view of OLPC’s part of the library, branded by OLPC Association and opened in collaboration with the Ministry of education of Rwanda and Rotary Club Virunga.
- View of the Library from the outside and OLPC logos on the windows of the outside glasses of the library.
The Rwanda Library Services Project was started by Rotary Club of Kigali – Virunga with the aim of creating the first ever public library in Rwanda. The members in recognition of ignorance as one major contributor to the horrific genocide against Tutsi in 1994, decided to come up with a project that would contribute immensely to the reconstruction of the country.
This is the place where kids will be learning basic computing skills but also enjoy a constructionist approach to learning. It will also offer Scratch and turtle art lessons, logo materials, robotics for the kids to acquire an analytic approach to problem solving. OLPC sees this as a great opportunity to share the OLPC program with the rest of the country.
Given the school servers are being installed in schools countrywide, OLPC program in Rwanda will echo the library in all OLPC schools through the eBooks they have acquired.
As this OLPC corner in Kigali library will be open for all user of Sugar learning environment, free wireless internet connection will give an opportunity for private schools students who are not privileged by the government’s deployment of OLPC laptops countrywide which targets mostly the public schools.
Kids already using the laptops inside the OLPC corner after the inauguration.
OLPC being a part of the first public library in Rwanda is not surprising because President Paul Kagame has been among the first believers in OLPC technology in education. Since 2009 Government of Rwanda is fully engaged in getting OLPC technology to each Rwandan child in primary education. Before the end of year 2012 they will be closing the deployment of 200 000 Laptops.
By Rwagaju Desire & Intwali Jimmy
OLPC Rwanda learning team
Rodrigo Arboleda – One of the 100 most influential Hispanics
Rodrigo Arboleda is the CEO of One Laptop Per Child Association, an organization that has distributed 2.7 million XO computers around the world, and which just marked a milestone in Colombia with the delivery of 11,000 laptops to children in public schools in ItagüÃ. He has also just been honored in Miami as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in that city. A special Colombian  man.
Photo – La Semana.com Colombia
Translation from a post in REVISTA SEMANA of Colombia, the most prestigious magazine of the country.
Former President Clinton mentions OLPC
At Fareed Zakaria’s CNN program “GPSâ€, President Bill Clinton mentions our OLPC Laptop as a transformational project. It followed the meeting at Hult University earlier in the year. The message is penetrating:
Interview with Bill Clinton aired September 23, 2012 – 10:00 Â ET
Complete TRANSCRIPT
ZAKARIA: You — It’s called “A Case for Optimism.” Most Americans are going to look at the situation therein and think, you know, everyone tells them this is the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Why are you optimistic?
CLINTON: Well, first of all, the recovery is slow because the damage was global and deep. And unemployment here is lower than it is in the Eurozone. Job creation here is better than it is in the U.K. So, for all of the problems, I think we’re moving in the right direction. It takes a long time to get over one of these financial crashes, but I think if you look around the world, if you look at just how the spread of elementary technology is generating wealth and opportunities, Haiti, where I do a lot of work, where Digicel has allowed all the cell phone owners in Haiti to do banking transactions over the cell phone, because the traditional banking system doesn’t work for them. That’s creating wealth, it’s facilitating the movement of money in a way that increases productivity. It makes a huge difference. All over the world wherever you increase cell phone penetration by ten percent in a developing country, it increases GDP output by six tenths of a percent. So, I think if you look at the impact of technology, what One Laptop for a Child movement can mean for bringing world-class educational materials to children who otherwise would have had to wait decades to get that kind of support, what it might even mean for poor schools in America, you have to be optimistic about it.
XO upgrade kits update
Thank you for your interest in the XO upgrade kits.
At this time, there is a minimum order quantity of 100 kits. If you are interested in ordering 100 upgrade kits or more, please contact Leah@laptop.org  at OLPC for further details. Make sure you indicate the SKU of the units you want to upgrade.
Unfortunately, due to packing, shipping, customs and warranty logistics, OLPC is currently unable to offer upgrade kits for orders under 100 kits. The costs of shipping individual components packed properly is high.
Order quantities of 1000 kits and larger can be processed faster and at lower cost.
If you have an early XO laptop and would like to see it run better and faster, our latest Operating System release can give it a new life, see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/
We thank you for your interest in the OLPC project.
OLPC looking for Linux/ UNIX admins
OLPC is looking for Linux/ UNIX admins to work on a multi-year edu project in Charlotte, NC. E-mail CV to david@laptop.org