[OLPC India] OLPC Afghanistan starting!

[Svetlana Senajova]

Dear All,

Perhaps Afghanistan is not the first place you think of when considering
your next vacation or internship.  But since OLPC are donating 10,000 G1G1
machines to Afghanistan and is working with the top level of the Ministry
of Education this could very well become a showpiece for OLPC in S. Asia.

Other 1,000 XO laptops are donated by telecommunication company Roshan and
PAIWASTOON Networking Services Ltd. is responsible for the complete
project implementation in upcoming months. XOs will be introduced to more
than 85,000 children as they will not be deployed at 1XO to 1 child but 21
XOs to 1 school in form of a computer lab, reaching 283 schools across the
country.

We are looking for 2 Interns / Graduates / Motivated volunteers to help us
building the capacity of the local team.  We need to operate university
outreach programs, training, and a fair bit of direct server config in
advance of having sufficient locally built capacity.   We are looking
through various graduate/student/internship organisations.

We can offer flight support, accommodation, and a living stipend.

Afghanistan day to day in most provinces and most places remains pretty
safe - one can walk around, go out, visit people using taxis or your own
car.  Driving can be just a little chaotic, but nowhere near as bad as in
India.  If you look beyond the media there is a lot to see here,
hospitality that even exceeds other developing countries, and really rapid
progress.  There are some places (like the south) that are dangerous, but
in Kabul and the north things are pretty stable.  One just needs to know
places to go to and places to stay away from (like military bases, big
foreigner parties, etc).

Right now we are half way through setting up an open source localisation
team for Afghanistan and building the open source community.  For those of
you who are more interested in remote contributions to Afghanistan
specifically, a chance is here too.

Afghanistan could be the case study that shows the ability of the XO to be
at the center of redevelopment. If we can make the XO work here - then we
can prove to the world that it can work almost anywhere!  You might hear
on the news about the chronic waste of money out here, the hundreds of
millions missing, wasted, and worse. And you know how cost effectively the
XO can change that.  The great thing about Afghanistan, is being a
development work in progress, we can together, and will, improve that
situation.  I hope we can find some people to join us on the ground and
help make that happen.

For info about OLPC Afghanistan please visit www.olpc.af or email me at
svetla at paiwastoon.com.af.

Thanks/Regards,

-Svetla

Svetlana Senajova
Business Development Director
PAIWASTOON Networking Services Ltd.
svetla at paiwastoon.com.af