Weekly Update Feb 13, 2007

[Bryan Berry]

Apologies that I have not posted the Weekly Update for a few weeks.

1. We have made alot of progress working with the government to make OLPC
part of education policy.

The Ministry of Education has included OLPC in an early draft of its Media
for Education Strategy.

*Media For Education Strategy*
Policies and Strategies
Schools will be equipped with Advance (modern) Information Technologies,
Following strategies will be followed:
Computer facilities will be extended in schools to match the vision of One
Laptop Per Child (Student) Vision.

This is still only a draft and it is not yet part of the three year or
current year education plans. We hope this draft becomes policy within the
next several weeks.

Shankar, Ankur, and myself had an excellent meeting last Sunday with Mr.
Janardan Nepal, Secretary General for the Department of Education. Mr. Nepal
was very positive about OLPC and we made plans for a larger presentation at
the Dept of Education office in Sanothimi some time next week. We also
discussed the possible formation of an OLPC task force within the
government. Special thanks to Som Paneru for arranging this meeting.

3. Mr. Rishi Shah of Everest Net has generously donated a dedicated server
to OLPC Nepal for hosting the OLPC wiki (knowledgebase) and OLPC's software
code repository. In addition to being a business leader, Rishi Ji is a
well-respected academician, journalist, and member of Nepal's Academy of
Science and Technology (NAST). He has agreed to lead outreach to Academia
for OLPC Nepal.


4. Ankur and Shankar had an excellent meeting with the staff of the Ullens
School in Kathmandu. The Ullens school is a private school for
under-privileged children that follows the Bank
Street<http://www.bankstreet.edu/>approach to education. Principal
Medin Lamicchane was very enthusiastic
about this project and expressed great interest in implementing many of the
school's innovative educational activities through the XO laptop.

5. Ankur and myself presented at the Kathmandu Squeak Conference this past
Saturday. The crowd of 300 parents, children, teachers and others were very
enthusiastic about both Squeak and OLPC. OLPC Nepal member Madhur Shrestha
did a great job organizing the conference. Madhur will help organize the
upcoming Teacher's Workshop for OLPC.

6. We will have our Wednesday meeting as usual in Sanepa at 6 PM. Shankar,
Ankur, and Himali Kiran will not be in attendance. They will be in Lumbini
for the CAN conference there. This week's meeting will focus on Outreach,
working with the MoES, and planning our upcoming Teacher's Workshop.

7. Work on Learning Activities Continues

[image: image:alphabet1-2.png]<http://wiki.olpcnepal.org/index.php?title=Image:Alphabet1-2.png>[image:
image:112-1.png] <http://wiki.olpcnepal.org/index.php?title=Image:112-1.png>

Bryan
Volunteer
OLPC Nepal
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