<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Saurabh Adhikari <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:adhikaris@hotmail.com">adhikaris@hotmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>
Sameer,<br>
<br>
You may be living on dated information.<br>
<br>
I am a volunteer for OLPC India as well and understand that there is NO OFFICIAL relationship between OLPC India and Reliance and Digital Foundation.<br>
<br>
What you are talking about was done a year ago on the basis of laptops DONATED by OLPC to what seemed like the Reliance organization. Some of their employees volunteered for it.
<br></div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><br>
Khairat was led by Carla of OLPC and not the person you name, though I hear he did a good job of supporting it at some point in time. However, there is no connectivity at Khairat despite the reports of Reliance of having supported it. <br>
</div></blockquote><div><br>Saurabh,<br><br>This is being plainly disingenuous. Carla simply did not show up at Mr. Surve's school in Khairat with 30 laptops. Yes, Carla led the effort, but there were plenty of others who made this happen as well. If possible, please give credit where credit is due. If not, please do not discredit work put in by folks at DBF and other volunteers. <br>
<br>While I do not wish to continue this dialogue beyond the constructive, here are some photos of the team at DBF with David Cavallo, Nicholas Negroponte, Harriet Vidyasagar, Amit Gogna, Sumit Chaudhary, and a whole bunch of others, including Satish Jha. Clearly, this is not "seems like Reliance". Its the real deal. You'll also see Mr. Surve, the teacher at Khairat and their wonderful school.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><br>
Also, Relaince did not seem to have put in any resources, did not buy any XOs and OLPC had to create a formal OLPC India organization (<a href="http://www.laptop.org/en/utility/people/satish-jha.html" target="_blank">http://www.laptop.org/en/utility/people/satish-jha.html</a>), a fact that seemed to have escaped you, that has about couple dozen senior volunteers including Prajakt Raut (former Directo of TiE Asia, Nilu (a former no 2 of Spectramind), Kanchan Gupta (a former VOP of GE) and a dozen others equally senior folks.<br>
</div></blockquote><div><br>As for official OLPC vs unofficial OLPC, I would invite you once again to take a look at <a href="http://blog.laptop.org/exploring-sustainable-education/">http://blog.laptop.org/exploring-sustainable-education/</a> There are two entities. Uppercase "OLPC" is usually used to refer to the non-profit company, One Laptop per Child, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which we all fondly call 1CC (1 Cambridge Center). This unit, and its partners are the uppercase OLPC. However, there are several lowercase "olpc" groups all over the world with little to no official connection with 1CC, but are nuclei for volunteer activities. olpc mumbai and pune are such groups. olpc-sf, the one that I belong to in San Francisco is similar. None of us have official affilations with 1CC other than a burning desire to make this project successful, come what may. I'll be very honest with you and others on the list. My involvement in this project really took off after witnessing children in Khairat. It is evidence of what is possible, and it needs to be nurtured.<br>
<br>What needs to happen at this point and beyond is for uppercase and lowercase to work toward one goal. <br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><br>
The action is in a dozen new schools that you do not seem aware of. And various large scale deployments that are being planned. <br></div></blockquote><div><br>This is indeed news to me. I looked at the OLPC India page and found a paragraph about a Katha school and a link. Katha school sounds impressive. If you have more information, please do post on this list and others. I would suggest posting to the olpc grassroots list as well. <br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><br>
Will you please let me know the list where real discussions are taking place? <br>
</div></blockquote><div><br><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/olpc-india">http://groups.google.com/group/olpc-india</a><br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><br>
Yes, we do need to build community. However, we need a large number of users as well. And we should all be hearing about that officially sometime sooner than later.<br>
</div></blockquote><div><br>I sincerely hope so, although I'm not holding my breath. <br><br>cheers,<br>Sameer <br>-- <br>Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.<br>Associate Professor of Information Systems<br>San Francisco State University<br>
San Francisco CA 94132 USA<br><a href="http://verma.sfsu.edu/">http://verma.sfsu.edu/</a><br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div> <br>
<div>
Sincerely,<br>
S Adhikari<br></div><br><br><br>
<br>
<hr><div class="im">
. <br><br>cheers,<br>Sameer<br>-- <br>Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.<br>Associate Professor of Information Systems<br>San Francisco State University<br>San Francisco CA 94132 USA<br><a href="http://verma.sfsu.edu/" target="_blank">http://verma.sfsu.edu/</a><br>
<a href="http://opensource.sfsu.edu/" target="_blank">http://opensource.sfsu.edu/</a><br></div></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
India mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:India@lists.laptop.org">India@lists.laptop.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br>