[OLPC Networking] Idea for research project?

[timothy perfitt]

Greetings all.

I am graduate student in California State University, Long Beach in  
the Master's program in Computer Science.  I have an interest in  
parallel and grid computing, and have looking at ideas for my master's  
thesis.  I am excited about the OLPC project as it blends my interest  
in technology, education, and development.  I was a math and science  
teacher for the Peace Corps volunteer in the South Pacific in the  
early 90's, and am currently working for Apple.   I contacted Mel Chua  
from off the wiki as the university contact, and he suggested I post  
to this list.

I have been reading the wiki and keeping up to date on the project,  
and have ordered 4 laptops (2 for myself, 2 donated) so that I can get  
some dev machines.  I know there are some immediate software projects  
that the XO needs help with, but I am looking for areas that are  
longer term and need some investigation.  With the mesh networking on  
the XO laptops, it seems that there is a lot of potential to be able  
to share adhoc computing resources from nearby nodes.   Ideas such as  
shared web caches, replicating curriculum resources, or even the  
propagation of local news (current events, market prices, etc) through  
the mesh seem like interesting possibilities.  If you know of an area  
that would benefit from further research and implementation that would  
have a good chance to acceptance into the XO project?, let me know.

Any ideas/advice would be greatly appreciated.

tim