[OLPC India] EeePC now or OLPC after 2 years ?

[Sameer Verma]

Marc Valentin wrote:
> Hi,
> I am in charge of a Belgian NGO. We are developping projects in India.
> Our main project is a school created in a backward village area in
> U.P. We have almost 600 children now and 120 more are coming every
> year. At the beginning, since the children in the villages didn't have
> the required level of education we had to start with KG and first
> primary (English medium). Each year we open a new level, now level
> four is open. Since the children are growing, I started searching for
> an acceptable computer lab solution (electricity is also a big problem
> in these village areas).
> We have a budget and OLPC looks an appealing solution but it looks the
> ideas behind the project prevent NGOs to be part of it. Let me explain
> : as the main person of the NGO, I have no possibility to get one of
> these computers in hand, I cannot even buy one. I tried to get one
> with the "G1G1 program donation" but it didn't work because I am not
> living in the USA ! But even if I could get one in hand, I could not
> order, because the OLPC organization is selling the computers only to
> governments.
> Now, I discovered the Asus Eee PC... This one is available immediately
> (I will get a sample next week), the power seems great and it does
> everything the OLPC does. (No fancy colors thought). So my question is
> : are you really going to do something for the NGOs working in India ?
> Can I tell my staff you are going to send a sample to them ? My
> feeling is that it is time to act because competition is there and
> OLPC will be obsolete before being released.
> -Marc Valentin-
> Oeuvre des pains asbl
> Gramin Manav Vikas Samiti
> http://www.OeuvreDesPains.org
> _______________________________________________
> India mailing list
> India at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india
>   


Hi Marc,
Maybe the "Give Many" program will work for you?
http://laptopfoundation.org/participate/givemany.shtml The website says
that you can direct where a percentage of the laptops will go. I suppose
you could direct that percentage to your own school...

As for the ASUS Eee PC my understanding is that hardware wise, the Eee
isn't as robust as the XO. It does not support mesh protocols which
allow you to build a network infrastructure on the fly where none exist.
Most importantly, Eee is missing all the activities
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities) that make the XO and OLPC more
than hardware+software+network.

The way I see it, the hardware, software and network innovations of the
XO are simply there to support constructivist approach to learning and
that to me is the most appealing aspect of the project. By the way, I am
no expert on learning (although I do teach for a living :-)) and someone
on my campus set me straight about constructivism, etc. Here's her
article...its an easy read.
http://online.bcit.ca/sidebars/02summer/inside-out-1.htm

cheers,
Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/