[Olpc-za] Getting involved

[Marco Rosa]

Hi Morgan

Thanks for the response. 
I don't know that there would be too much I could do in terms of development
but I feel that I have a lot to offer in terms of lifting the awareness of
OLPC project locally. I have some high level contacts in the media,
Government and, perhaps more importantly, in the corporate world. I would
love to be able to present to them to get their CSR programmes involved and
to raise funds. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get some traction
out here because I'm an ardent believer in OLPC and see it as a shining
light at the end of the very dark tunnel that is our current education
system. I would even like to get involved in the deployment efforts once we
get to that stage. Essentially, this is something that I'd like to dedicate
the majority of time to but would like to get more information on the
structure and strategy of OLPC in South Africa. Ideally I'd like to meet
with you or anyone else that is currently involved and that can fill me in
on some more detail. I am based in Cape Town but travel up to Joburg fairly
regularly.
Please also help me with the details on how I could apply through the
contributors program to get an XO to use for demonstrations and fund
raising.

Looking forward to your response.

Kind regards,
Marco

-----Original Message-----
From: olpc-za-bounces at lists.laptop.org
[mailto:olpc-za-bounces at lists.laptop.org] On Behalf Of Morgan Collett
Sent: 21 August 2008 11:05 AM
To: OLPC South Africa Interest Group
Subject: Re: [Olpc-za] Getting involved

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 10:43, Marco Rosa <marcorosa at mweb.co.za> wrote:
> Hi. Could someone please help me with information on how to get involved
> with OLPC in South Africa, particularly in the Western Cape. Thanks,

Hi Marco

There's very little happening, which means you can choose anything and
it will make a difference :-)

As far as deployments go, there are none in the Western Cape. There's
one in Gauteng at Kliptown Youth Project in Soweto, and there's one
happening now in Limpopo at three small schools. Both of those were
funded by donations (Give Many) by overseas people and organisations.

Here then are some ways to get involved locally:
* Find organisations willing to donate, to raise funds to run a
deployment in the Western Cape. Minimum order is 100 XOs, and someone
must take responsibility for doing the deployment - and additional
things are required too like access points, internet connectivity,
generators, server for the school, etc.
* Work with educators, educational organisations, on the Sugar
software - get them set up with it on say Ubuntu on conventional
computers, get them involved in using/testing the software and giving
feedback

Or you could get involved in the (global project) software development
process, contributing or testing or documenting...

You can apply through the contributors program to get an XO, and use
that for development, or demonstrating to raise funds, etc.

Or any number of other things I can't think of right now :)

What appeals to you?

Regards
Morgan
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