[OLPC-Chicago] Introducing Jason

[Jason Hoekstra]

Hey Mel,

Thanks much for the introduction and apologizes for the huge delay in  
response..  As you know, I took a job with the Obama campaign a bit  
before meeting in Chicago. Soon after this email, my life became  
completely immersed in campaign work. Just a few days ago (after a  
week of much needed rest), I decided to continue those efforts with  
the campaign in DC. For this reason, I won't be able to work with the  
Chicago OLPC groups at this time (DC either, perhaps in a few months).

I noticed a while ago you sent out a good article on grassroots  
efforts an the Obama campaign. As evidenced by the Nov 4th win,  
grassroots efforts work and very effective in building groups of  
people to support a chase, if not moreso than traditional  
organizations. From what I've seen as a volunteer, it's important to  
tie together what potential supporters' interests into the cause being  
supported.  I remember speaking at our lunch about bringing in non- 
tech folks into the OLPC efforts to learn together with children to  
think of new ways of the OLPC learning platform. I think ideas like  
this are fantastic and spread the word outside of our tech-lists and  
meetups.  The more community support a program has, the further it'll  
travel.

Curious if anyone has experimented running the Sugar OS in multinode,  
non-XO environments in the US?  I know the purpose of OLPC is to build  
a low cost computer device, but I see a lot of usable equipment around  
that could be used for the same educational purposes. I love how the  
Sugar environment is uniquely geared towards children and believe they  
work well within it.  However, at $400 per laptop via G1G1, I believe  
it's cost prohibitive for US community programs/schools.  I know of a  
few programs back in Atlanta that may want to run with this, but  
curious to know if it's been attempted. I have run Sugar in a few non- 
XO environments for development purposes.   Thoughts?

Jason

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 9:03 PM, Mel Chua <mel at melchua.com> wrote:
Folks,

I'd like to introduce you to Jason Hoekstra, an OLPC volunteer who  
grew up in - and is moving back to - the Chicago area. He's interested  
in getting some local pilots started and has plenty of experience in  
drumming up grassroots initiatives and making community-run programs  
happen - but needs help doing so. Jason, can you introduce yourself  
and share some of your ideas with the list about what you'd like to do  
and what you need? (The same goes for everybody here, really - what  
are you interested in?)

One promising option is to start slowly by running workshops, weekly  
or biweekly, in the fall. Each week a different topic, with a  
different organizer, taught with the XO as some component of it - one  
week it might be a sociologist talking about relationship networks and  
having kids look at Myspace/Facebook/Linkedin profiles to talk about  
how people show their connections, maybe another week a speech  
pathologist can use Speak to talk about phonetic systems in different  
languages... This is mostly the approach being taken by a school in  
Boston that is planning to launch a full-scale, one-grade-saturation  
pilot in the spring term.

The library in Evanston was interested in doing something and might  
make a great host for this, but I've been woefully terrible at  
following up with that what with moving to Boston recently and all.  
I'll get back in touch with them this weekend, but if you're  
interested in this (Hans and Bob, I know you are) please let me know  
(or holler to this list) so we can all coordinate instead of swamping  
the library in queries and offers of help. ;)

-Mel


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