[OLPC India] OLPC Small Scale developments India

[Ananya Guha]

OLPC should be looked upon as a movement, but what about content? Does
technology drive pedagogy or, vice versa.

Ananya S Guha.

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 1:36 AM, ravis <ravisu at rediffmail.com> wrote:

> Unfortunately, macro pictures as you paint have not been as visible in
> reality.. And the macro picture seems even more encouraging at 11 million
> cell phones being added every month in India! Then why has India not bought
> any OLPC XOs yet when Nepal managed to get a decent number, much more
> resource challenged Rwanda ordered 110,000 and Latin American countries
> can't seem to get enough of them?
>
> OLPC is not a vendor at all.. Once you get into retailing of the kind you
> suggest, costs will go up by at least 40 percent, like most retailers.
>
> In OLPC model, scale is very important indeed. That is what keeps the costs
> down.
>
> Its a ZERO margin model that creates a new dynamics.
>
> Capable people who can create OLPC XO that remains a few generations ahead
> of technology vendors that dominate the retail market do not come cheap.
> Tose who understand tehnology and pedagogy can hardly be recruited at the
> cost associated with school education ether. So there is little room for
> dealing with multitudes of bodies without adequate resources.
>
> As of now its some crazy folks who have left global or national executive
> roles that are funding the India project of reaching out to those who canlay
> the ground for scale.
>
> NGOs in the developing world are part of their skills fabric and may simply
> not have the resources to adapt to the model (though it may be a far from PC
> statement for teh NGO community and I would request their patience with it
> instead) and OLPC clearly does not have the resources to manage the
> relationships that need to be built for that.
>
> Ideally, we should look at OLPC as a pedagogy/technology visionary and
> creator and neither as a vendor nor social activist. Rather its an
> organization, even better, a movement, made possible who know how to create
> technology and have a passion for transforming education instead.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From:"K. K. Subramaniam"
> To:india at lists.laptop.org <To%3Aindia at lists.laptop.org>
> Date:Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:41:59 +0530
> Subject:Re: [OLPC India] OLPC Small Scale developments India
> On Sunday 30 Aug 2009 10:52:03 pm ravis wrote:
> > The one thing that we need to remember always is that OLPC is about
> > SCALE!It does not work with a few laptops, regardless of how noble the
> > intent.
> Ravi,
>
> Scale is hardly likely to be an issue in a country that is adding 5+
> million
> mobile phone subscribers a month and 2+ million laptops a year!
>
> OLPC has to be careful not to get its role as a universal education
> promoter
> mixed up with its role as a XO vendor. Ideally, there should be a separate
> organization for each of these roles.
>
> As a education promoter, OLPC should partner with regional NGOs and support
> groups. It should leave the decision of sharing laptop between two or more
> children to the parents/providers. It is a complex cultural issue. They may
> eventually chose to have one per child, but that should be allowed to
> emerge
> naturally, not imposed from "above".
>
> As a XO vendor, OLPC has to be prepared to sell XOs in large number of
> small
> packs - say 5-packs, 10-packs, 50-packs, 100-packs. This will require
> tie-ups
> with retailers in metros, towns, online shopping portals who can then
> aggregate orders from parents and local governing bodies (public schools).
>
> Subbu
>
>
>
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>
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