• what the heck is olpc? (see http://wiki.laptop.org )
  
• it's an education project (not a laptop project) and a grassroots effort ("we're in business to put ourselves out of business")
• this leads to a very... interesting volunteer/staffing model
• as well as lots of problems with information sharing and transparency (even if we try to be very open)
• and a huge activation energy hump for people getting involved
• as well as many, many, many misunderstandings and slip-ups - ginormous learning process
  
• obligatory shiny green laptop demo - it uses python! a lot! and wikis! yay!
  
• getting tech hackers, nontech hackers, and non-hackers to work together in peace (sometimes) and harmony (usually)
• including the lovely issue of translation and internationalization and work across borders and cultures
• as well as how we get people to self-organize (hypothetically)
• and locally-based groups as well as geographically distributed interest-based ones
• "recruiting" - jams, sprints, conferences, local meetups... making it easier for people to get involved
  
• tools we use (or in other words, "why openplans makes Mel ridiculously happy")
• possible synergy brainstorm - what can topp and olpc maybe do for/with each other? (probably... after the March release.)
  

Mel is also happy to ramble on at length about any of the projects she's working on at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Mchua  (and would like to confirm that she does in fact not really sleep all that much).

Questions, topics you want to tackle?

• developing Activity bundles for the XO ("Sugarizing")? Don't know if any of TOPP's projects would take to this (even just a special css stylesheet for the small screen)?
• what kids have done with the laptops so far (including really cute pictures)?
• interface design; the Sugar UI and why adults are usually horribly confused by it?
• your ideas here?
  

Transcript

 

yo mel's olpc talk is beginning

mel: I don't usually make slides so these are ugly, but here we go

olpc overview:

we have laptops and we have children
we put them together in a 1:1 relationship
so the question is not how to make shiny hardware and software, but how to help children learn and what kind of education is possible when we have super-ubiquitous internet

connecting children, information, interaction from around the world
as opposed to this (thinkpad) which costs ~2000 we can make a super-rugged, waterproof, indestructible laptop for under 200
OK, so I have a couple of laptops I'm not using.  I would like to trade them for one boy and one girl, preferably Peruvian.

and we don't want to push all the kids to become ace python hackers, but to make them aware that they can change their environment

<slide>: baby as per carly's recommendation

<slide> mel's cousins using an XO

it's really cool to watch the transformation from a purely internal project to something that's deployed all over the world
olpc's can connect to each other wirelessly (mesh networking) and share internet, work without internet, etc.
more on hardware later

it would be really annoying if we needed to be on the internet for everything since the internet isn't available everywhere
so we want to enable lots of autonomous activities

olpcs allow attaching scientific instrumentation to be attached for field/lab work

<slide> map of world colored by olpc penetration

olpc project != a laptop hardware company, more of an organization trying to enable/support the creation of grassroots organizations worldwide

<slide> rainbow as per carly's talk (this one is a security framework)

<slide> sex(y hardware) also as per carly's talk

<demo> the hardware comes apart super easy, mel->assert(time(tearDown + buildUp) < 3min
there've been 8-year olds who have successfully repaired XO's
<factoid> the XO is one of the greenest computers ever manufactured
minimal power consumption (like under 8W maximum)
CPU can be turned off while screen displays a static image (think eBooks)
all memory is flash, no plattered harddrives to introduce mechanical failures
speech-quality speakers
display contains a *replaceable* LED backlight
display replacement cost ~= $40

sonali: where are these being manufactured?
mel: mostly taiwan, china

jhammel: so no opencore sometime soon? (re 1GB ram)
mel: well there's a school server idea
so we'd have a pretty decent machine with 300GB disk space, good internet capabilities, etc. and the laptops could mesh with that
and potentially something like opencore could run there
we're already using CMS's like Moodle, Drupal to provide blogging for kids etc

sonali: what about the social aspects?  how do you deal with literacy issues?
mel: I'll need to put my laptop back together for that :)

go to http://wiki.laptop.org/ for dev details
short version: "apt-get install sugar" gets you enough to experiment with the OLPC interface and even develop for it

<demo> see, here it is on mel's laptop
note the interface's minimal use of language

more on i18n: the keyboard is a single, screen-printed sheet of rubber => super easy to overlay new layouts

more on the interface: forget about files and folders.  we just have a 'journal' that keeps track of everything you do
can be searched by type (sound, text, etc.) time, or name
or by collaborators
<doug> here, you can demo with my XO
mel: also, you can mark journal entries as 'favorites' and come back to them later

here's the neighborhood interface
you can think of the olpc interface as four levels of zoom
neighborhood -> friends -> activity list -> activity screen
friends list allows you to invite friends to activities

sugar apps are all shareable, can invite friends to share chat, text editing session, drawing, whatever

things I can't show in the emulator: here's a camera
the laptop can have the screen flipped around backward tablet-style
usb ports and motherboard are in the same segment of the xo with the display
so if the hinge fails, you can just plug in a usb keyboard and keep on using the xo
(also minimal use with built in cursor keys)

the XO is designed to charge of a wide variety of power sources
<sidetrack> there's a cow-based XO charger someplace in india, cow pushes a wheel to turn a turbine
</tech:details>

mel: now, how does this relate to topp?
tons of grassroots work going on
art for games, other content, ideas for activities, etc
lots of "give one, get one" participants are trying to get involved, but not technical -> need a tool to help them create an online presence
hm, does TOPP do anything like that?
plusses for OLPC contributors == they need it
plusses for TOPP == great testing base
plusses for Mel == she doesn't have to do it anymore!

<photos> mel organized an OLPC + UNICEF code jam this past weekend
lots of projects going on including one on "community mapping"
want to create a tool to allow community leaders to map out problems in the community and do some basic urban planning type things
think "Maybe we don't want to have the latrine so close to town"

seb: I thought they said GeoServer was too heavy to run on the XO
mel: We have this 'school server' idea, could use that or the "real" internet
would be nice to have testing and outside developers doing work so we don't have to

stuff that's already been done by TOPPers:
chris->Asteroids
doug->some work on setting up the dev env on Gentoo
anil->some work on pygame, might talk about this later
jhammel->bitsyblog (OLPC would really benefit from simple, light blogging software)

OLPC CONTACT INFO: http://wiki.laptop.org/
or #olpc right here on Freenode

<questions>
cabraham: what are critics saying against the XO?  why should we spread American culture (and the crap that's on the internet) around the world
mel: so the big thing is that I'm a volunteer and I don't speak for the organization
this is a big problem that the content team is trying to deal with
this is why the grassroots groups in local countries are SO IMPORTANT for the OLPC project
we have a lot of frameworky stuff (tools, olpc apps) that we love to share
but we want a lot of the content to be produced locally
we've had a team in argentina working for a couple of years in localizing a lot of content including wikipedia articles
cabraham: so is the internet just completely uncensored? is that a country-by-country issue?
mel: the laptop doesn't include any censoring facilities, that should be handled by the teachers and parents
mel: the school server will probably handle this, it's still under heavy development

sonali: i see one of the hardest uphill battles that users will be facing is illiteracy
doug: I remember hearing of an indian researcher who put a computer in a public, low-income area and found that children taught themselves to use it and even read (http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Hole-in-the-Wall.htm )

phil: they also can use video chat to help each other use it over the internet

mel: maybe video chat is pushing it a bit (mesh network has limited bandwidth)

mel: i've talked about the really shiny side of these issues, but there are definitely some hard parts
it's really fun when you're working on the initial stages of a project, but when it's deployed widely it assumes a very different character
now we have lots of support (both user and developer) to deal with
mel: windows users are prevalent in a lot of parts of the world, hard to find linux gurus to support these things

jhammel: random question: is there an HTML editor/server built in to the XO software?
mel: we thought of that, but scrapped the project due to time pressure
could be easily done, share documents over the mesh would be really cool
mel: currently to edit HTML you have to use abiword, != the best html editor
most fedora packages work so you can sort of do it now
but it's not braindead simple

seb: will the get one, give one promo ever start back up again?
mel: not really, distribution is a lot of overhead when you have tons of individual purchases
ebay is a decent place to get them
current manufacture price = $186, for reference

mel: i would love to hear from people who are interested in integrating openplans/geoserver/whatever
</mel's talk>
everyone: <applause type="emphatic">