[Olpc-za] Welcome and introductions <- START HERE

[Antoine van Gelder]

Hi !

I see we now have eight people subscribed to the list so I guess we 
might as well get going.

I'd like to start by introducing myself:

My name is Antoine van Gelder and for the last nine months or so I have 
been working as an unofficial volunteer on the One Laptop Per Child 
project.

A few weeks ago I received one of the hardware prototypes which prompted 
me to start thinking seriously about what I could do to help South 
Africa benefit from a project I believe in.

A few lucky accidents later Stuart, Morgan, Gareth and I managed to 
exhibit it at the recent UWC Digital Freedom Expo to a very positive 
response which greatly increased my confidence that it might be possible 
for a small group of folk to lay some of the groundwork we need to bring 
the XO laptop to South Africa.

OLPC is an interesting organization in that it is a grassroots project 
rather than the traditional top-down approach which characterizes most 
aid projects to the developing world.

Not many people know this, but an example of what this means in practice 
is that there are only 15 people who are actually employed full-time by 
OLPC!

I think it's important to understand that to a large degree the photos 
we are starting to see from pilot OLPC projects in other countries did 
not come about because important people met with each other and set the 
machinery of government in motion.

Rather, these photos came about because of grassroots organizations made 
up of teachers, school administrators, parents, artists, university 
lecturers, computer geeks, reporters and other ordinary folk.

A good example of such an organization is: http://www.olpcnepal.org

The following links also contain good information on the role we can play:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Grassroots_Organizations
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_Building
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Rollout_and_community_building_ideas

We also have our own page on the official OLPC wiki:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_South_Africa

The other resource we have available to us is: http://laptop.org.za - 
there is not much there yet so any suggestions or contributions to the 
site would be most helpful!

  - antoine