1. One Laptop Per Child Critical IT and the University of Toronto

2. Rochelle's Remark Bachellor's apartments and shredded papers

3. Relevance How can what I'm doing help the world?

4. We've Seen How to enroll, pay, house, connect, schedule, place and teach students

5. My Focus Here How IT can help you inspire your students

6. IT as a Bridge To relevance To being a critical part of the world

7. One Laptop Per Child An educational project Helping 50 million young children reach their dreams

8. Who we want to help Underprivileged children

9. Not starving, but not the rich of the earth either...

10. Existing Schools (If they exist) Have only minimal supplies and equipment No or minimal libraries Might be too far to walk

11. Rural school in Nepal. Nepal's urban schools are often well funded and provisioned, while schools in rural areas are often quite limited in comparison.

12. No Infrastructure in Many Areas No (or spotty) electricity No phones or too expensive (Plumbing optional)

13. Fishing village in Columbia. South American schools often have power and running water, while the poorest children's homes will not.

14. Teacher's Challenges Poor pay, poor schools Few texts, materials or equipment

15. Schools are Backward Corrupt officials intercepting funds Rote learning instead of exploration Entrenched ideas and approaches

16. Children Have to Work Families need every hand to make ends meet 6 hours of formal daytime school isn't necessarily practical

17. Money Doesn't Always Help American Schools can feel like pointless prisons Schools are not places of hope and exploration Children want to escape

18. Even Brilliant Children Can be Left Behind

19. For the Under- privileged Dreams can seem unattainable

20. Daunting Problem for Educators Can't recreate the world's school system's overnight...

21. What can we do now? For the generation in school today How do we help them reach their dreams?

22. The Key Observation

23. Textbooks Cost Money Around $20/year per child

24. Textbooks Do Not Age Well Expensive, heavy, out of date Damaged by previous child (When they are available at all)

25. The Plan Take textbook money for ~5 years Make an inexpensive networked textbook reader Give them (free) to the children instead of textbooks

26. Keeps Up to Date Avoids obsolescence and degradation Downloads next year's texts when the child wants them Child owns the reader

27. Ministries of Education Makes sense economically Especially if the country owns the content

28. Compelling

29. But not Just a Textbook Reader... ● A phone ● camera ● writing supplies ● drawing supplies ● science equipment ● music equipment ● news reader ● web browser ● virtual classroom or anything at all...

30. A Laptop Computer A reconfigurable tool for learning That a child can take anywhere

31. Not your Typical Laptop

33. Budget $140USD per unit to start ~$100USD as volume increases (2008-2009) (External funding for poorer countries)

34. Power Recently upgraded the spec Geode LX 700 (433MHz) 256MB RAM

35. Energy Efficient < 1/10 the draw of a typical laptop (0.1 to 1.0W versus 20-75W)

36. Child Powered (Literally) Omnivorous power input New battery composition Manual charger for no- other-option areas

37. Connectivity Mesh networking (and point-to-point) (802.11s with separate power rail) WiFi (802.11g with cute antenas) School server access points

38. Robustness No spinning disks Shock-resistant, water resistant case Target at least 3 years MTBF with easy field maintenance to 5 years

39. Super Screen 200DPI sunlight-readable screen Separate screen-buffer power rail Custom display-controller ASIC

40. Utility Camera Game controls USB 2.0 Ebook mode Pressure-sensitive “stylus” (stick) Audio port probe

41. Environmentally Friendly (as much as possible) No toxic materials in the case

42. Physical Integrity Theft and kill switches

43. Software

44. Build a Secure OS for 6 year Old Children (who may not yet know how to read or write)

45. Simplified User Interface Targeted at a 6-year-old child's cognitive capabilities (High resolution, black-and-white friendly)

47. With Full Access Able to play with the definition of any tool or activity on the machine (This is a key educational requirement)

48. But it can't be just a toy Going to be used day-in and day-out For 6 to 16 year olds

49. Extensible for Learning Must be able to alter current or write new software to meet their needs (But development breaks things you need right now...)

50. Recovery Modes “Teacher my laptop's broken, I can't work today” should not happen (In many areas the laptop itself is critical infrastructure)

51. Layered Security System Union File Systems / Overlays Capability-based default restrictions on tools/activities and file/net access

52. Huge Scale Millions of children 1% of project is still 100's of thousands of children! Have to support the 1%'s

53. Backup Strategies Backup/restore/recover for ~50 million users

54. What we need

55. Individual Efforts Programmers, librarians, academics Sysadmins, managers, administrators Educators

56. Group Efforts

57. Engaging Activities Constructivist Learning Environments Simulators and Games Collaboration and Communication Tools Exploratory Activities

58. Relevant Content Encyclopedias and dictionaries Textbooks, picture books Musical scores, art pictures Exercise books, teaching units/curriculum

59. Localisation Extended Linux support for “exotic” languages (e.g. Nepalese dialects) Translations and library management

60. Special Content Basic “guidance” services “How to” documents “Special” topic explorations

61. Project Format Open Source Code Open Content (Normally) Easily Accessed (Free) Tools Open Membership Active Client Country Groups for Collaboration

62. Your Key Advantages Python as core Computer Science Langauge Teaching Focus Strong IT program (ref: This Conference)

63. OLPC http://www.laptop.org