[OLPC India] Partnering with OLPC in India

[Marc Valentin]

Hi Satish,
First, as far as I know, these are your first posts on the OLPC indian
list, so warm 'welcome' !
Amit Bhatia... Prakash Nanda... Puja, I never saw any post from these
people on the list...
Wait, give me 5 minutes, I will get the information about them from
the website of OLPC india : http://www.olpc.co.in Oups... nothing. :-)
What I mean is : what is the credibility of all this ?
It is like the indian astonauts going to mars (or moon ?) project or
the broadband internet for all by 2010 project : a lot of "24x7
management level senior professionals" involved with big talks and
that is all. Don't you realize the international community is laughing
at this ? Except when there are tragedies, news from India in the
columns of the newspapers are always fun. Like that time when an
official said India reached the goals of the Millenium in advance,
that primary education for all in India was a reality ! "Incredible
India", that is very true. (Maybe you know this touristic publicity we
see here in Europe). :-)
Now, what I would say, bring up the website, give transparency to the
organization, insist on what was done more than on what will be done
and we will start believing in this project.
-marc valentin-
http://www.OeuvreDesPains.org

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 2:19 PM, Satish Jha OLPC <satish at laptop.org> wrote:
> Listservs are typically agnostic in these matters. However, I have
> experienced that my spam folder has been rather active lately and, in case I
> fail to pay attention, loss of mails is sometimes an unintended consequence.
>
> OLPC did not have an organization until mid - July 2008. It donated 500
> laptops to the local team that was keen on creating pilots or showcases.
> Without an organization it is often hard to achieve goals.
>
> Now we have a a nucleus organization in place.
>
> Amit Bhatia is a well known professional in the education segment. He was a
> Senior Vice President of Macmillan India and also had a couple stints as CEO
> of organizations. I am rather impressed at his recognition among decision
> makers in the country and he has got off to a great start. He is our Adviser
> on national outreach, buy ins and closing large projects.
>
> Prakash Nanda is a seasoned communicator and was also the Director of a well
> know educational institution in Delhi. He worked as an Assistant Editor of
> the Times of India (that is, reporting to the Editor and writing editorials
> and edit page articles) and then was head of a division of Sahara Television
> network. He has written four books on matters of international affairs and
> state and is a professional development communicator.
>
> Puja has been the executive assistant to a couple CEOs and most importantly
> managed the TiE Delhi offices before joining us.
>
> We will have state level coordinators as we go along.
>
> These are all 24x7 management level senior professionals with a record of
> achievement as best as we can imagine.
>
> This team is focused on achieving the targets. It works 24x7 as needed. This
> is all they do. And we have some serious negotiations going on along the
> lines of the levels we are talking about.
>
> That said, one laptop per child can only succeed with everyone's support.
> Its critical to remain positive and create a virtuous circle of goodwill and
> bring together all those who are passionate about this cause in ways that we
> can achieve our goals.
>
> Thanks much.
>
> On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 4:10 AM, Marc Valentin <mvalentin at oeuvredespains.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>> I didn't get this email from Satish Jha. Is it normal ? Is there some
>> problem again with the indian list ? Or it was posted somewhere else ?
>> About the content, I almost fell from my seat. As always in India,
>> people think BIG but just see the facts. So far it took one year to
>> import 500 machines and the organization is struggling to put just a
>> simple wiki website online ! (Sorry Amit ;-) )
>> By the way, we are still waiting to watch the record of the "OLPC
>> India day" of august.
>>  >>
>> >> --
>> >> --
>>
>>
> On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 4:10 AM, Marc Valentin <mvalentin at oeuvredespains.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>> I didn't get this email from Satish Jha. Is it normal ? Is there some
>> problem again with the indian list ? Or it was posted somewhere else ?
>> About the content, I almost fell from my seat. As always in India,
>> people think BIG but just see the facts. So far it took one year to
>> import 500 machines and the organization is struggling to put just a
>> simple wiki website online ! (Sorry Amit ;-) )
>> By the way, we are still waiting to watch the record of the "OLPC
>> India day" of august.