[OLPC India] Partnering with OLPC in India

[Manusheel Gupta]

 Marc,

I am not in the loop regarding OLPC plans for India. However, I just wish to
suggest that finding shortcomings is good if the purpose is to make the
strategy and operations efficient. Please make the effort to
encourage/criticize the team in a way that helps them to take a step
forward.

I know about you through Amit, who has always appreciated your involvment
and feedback. There is no question that you are a committed and a caring
volunteer.

The beginning of July 2006 was just fine enough that OLPC would have never
been around India for decades. Progress has come along slowly with success
and mistakes. olpc.co.in has been an initiative belonging to the latter
category. I believe the concerned team knows about it, and will take action
in the best interests of everybody, sometime soon.

I apologize if I wrote anything that was hurtful to anybody concerned with
this memo. My only request. OLPC should be a peaceful project.

Regards,
Manu


On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 9:13 PM, Marc Valentin
<mvalentin at oeuvredespains.org>wrote:

> 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 <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.
>  _______________________________________________
> India mailing list
> India at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india
>
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