[OLPC India] Feedback:OPLC Project

[Keshav Dubey]

Feedback:OPLC Project
Personally speaking, when I first heard about this OLPC project, I was 
really fascinated. It was also really hard to believe that something of this 
sort and with such great impact on the developing societies of the world 
could be possible for as low as $100.But on going into the details of the 
project I have come to believe that it is is a reality and the project is in 
its final stages of its development.

== a) What is your view on the Laptop ? ==
It is indeed a great idea and a very revolutionary one which will have a 
great impact on the generations to come.It will enable the children to 
question the things around and to learn the new concepts and fundamentals on 
their help and will also encourage greater communication between them will 
the help of the mesh networking which is actually the true definition of 
education.It will vastly improve the skiled human resource of the developing 
countries which are somewhat devoid of it in the present scenario.All in all 
it is a great start which will change with the changing needs of the 
society.

== (b) What type of features do you suggest should be added considering the 
Indian community as a larger picture ? ==
The various features that i would suggest considering the Indian community 
as a whole will include :-
----


''' 1.''' All the programs and study material must be in the vernacular 
languges so that it is easier to start with but an effort must be made to 
teach the children some of the very important languages that will help them 
in the future the most important being English.
'''2.'''The body should be solid enought o bear the daily wear and tear and 
the adverse climatic conditions in india
'''3.'''The contents of the ebooks of other educational software must be 
written with sufficient participations of the teachers of India and no one 
knows the needs of the students of this country better than these.And the 
contents must be indiscriminatory.
'''4.'''I think that an inbuilt radio synchnonised to the freuency of AIR 
and if possible FM as these still remain the major sourses of information 
for the rural india.
'''5.''' As many of the users of the laptops will be very new to anything 
like this,there are bound to be problems pertaining to the hardware. So 
there must be enough individuals with adiquate knowledge to bring the system 
back to its normal state.

== c) What type of softwares do you suggest can help in establishing the 
vision wrt to India ? ==

'''1.''' A good collection of ebooks if the first and foremost requirement 
and as their is a shotage of memory,the ebooks must be updated according to 
the needs of the students.This might be done by a few individuals who may be 
assigned the task for a particular district and so on.
'''2.'''It must also contain some dictionary software which helps the 
students to find the meanins of the difficult words in the inculded ebooks 
and softwares.
'''3.'''Teaching guides must be embedded in the system itself so that the 
students can learn to operate the laptop in a very systmised and efficient 
way and may not at any stage feel that it is out of their capabilities.
'''4.'''A few small games may also be included as there should be some 
entertainment as well though the primary aim is education.
'''5.''' the idea of open sourse code is also great as it gives the students 
great oppurtunity to find new dimensions for themselver and also can 
customise and scale the ;aptop to their needs and requirement.

== (d) What type of content should be developed that can help Indian 
students ? ==

As this project is basically directed towards the education of the age group 
6-18 which means from primary to the senior secondary,we cannot expect a 6-7 
year old child doing programming.So the basic reqirement is to continuously 
upgrade the contents depending upon the need and his abilities.This will 
also cater to the memory shortage problem as only that stuff rsides on 
thlaptop which is required.The participation of local teachers is a must for 
the success of the programme.


==e) Any hardware specification that you wish should be added ?==

The hardware seems suffient enough to cater to the needs of the students in 
a large way. We cannot ask for more for a price as low as $100.
But i think that the 500MB flash memory is the only restriction in this 
project.So atlest a CD-ROM drive must be their which helps in easy data 
transfer and sharing.If possible it may be upgraded to a cd-Writer.

==f) What do you suggest for solving the development  issues ?==

The task of development of the machines must be decentralised as this will 
help in a great deal in bringing down the manufacturing cost.
Also more than the manufacturing, the distribution system must be 
regularised properly so as to enable proper distribution of the laptops to 
the needy students and to prevent the misuse of the stuff.

==j) What are the different types of Open Source Software used in India 
apart from GNU/Linux system with Linux Kernel with JFFS,Mozilla Firefox
Abiword and Gnumeric.

The idea of the open sourse software is a great one.The basic advantages of 
it are the avalability os the sourse code and the right to modify it,right 
to improvement and right to use it in any way.
Some of the problems overcomed by these are like there is no one with the 
power to restrict in a unilateral way how the software is used,there is no 
single entity on which the future of the software depends,there is always 
the possibility of creating an alternative code base if the current one is 
in some way perceived as wrongly managed.
Today, open source programs such as Apache (web server),Netscape (web 
browser), and sendmail (mail transport) are the dominant products in their 
categories with over 10 million copies in use for each.


I hope that this project servers what it AIMS at and help in the upliftment 
of the children giving them a brighter future to live in.


Keshav Dubey
NSIT
New Delhi
India

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