[Grassroots-l] [University-chapters] OLPCorps : a summer grant program for student initiatives?

[Nirav Patel]

I heard about this moments ago through the grapevine (africans at mit ->
ict4dev at mit -> dso at cmu -> my inbox), so it seems there is at least
widespread interest in the idea.

Having a deadline approximately a month away constrains this almost
exclusively to students at a university with existing ties and work
with an educational project in an African nation.  I don't see how
anyone could establish a solid relationship with a local NGO or
school, secure funding, build a team, and submit a proposal in a month
without the first two steps already completed, but perhaps that was
the intent.

There are certainly several universities where that is the case
though, and funding the deployment of 100 XOs through them would at
minimum provide 100 more children with laptops, and more than likely
educations.  There is of course also the possibility of any of these
micro-deployments jump starting something bigger if
teams/organizations manage to establish other sources of funding, as
is the goal, I imagine.

Nirav

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Samuel Klein <sj at laptop.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> A group of students who have worked on two small deployments in Africa
> over the past year have been designing an OLPCorps Africa project, to
> encourage students everywhere to found and contribute to
> locally-supported school projects.
>
> You can find their proposal at
>  http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPCorps_Africa
>
> OLPC is considering this seriously for promotion and funding this
> summer.  Paul Commons from Indiana University has been leading the
> proposal development.
>
> I'd like to hear people's thoughts.   I have my own, but for now I'll
> limit myself to saying:  I see as many clever high school as
> university students, who need similarly grand projects to aspire to...
> and until children /with/ XOs can't propose their own, our meta-"view
> source" key isn't working properly.
>
> SJ
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