Technology-based Social Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Ventures: Lessons from the field

Technology Based Social Ventures:
Lessons from the field
Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Presentation:
Associate Professor Social and Technological Entrepreneurship
Information Systems Department at SF State (STEPS) Initiative
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA 94132 USA
Available online at http://slideshare.net/sverma

Disclaimer: I do not work for OLPC.
I am only a volunteer!

To create educational opportunities
for the world's poorest children by
providing each child with a rugged,
low­cost, low­power, connected
laptop with content and software
designed for collaborative, joyful,
self­empowered learning.
—OLPC Mission Statement,
It's an education project, not a laptop
project. —Nicholas Negroponte,

The Prophet
Children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you
cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
-kahlil gibran

July 2007
The first time I actually saw the OLPC XO laptop.

The next generation...

School Galadima, Abuja City, Nigeria
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Galadima

Samkha village located in the suburbs of northern Thailand
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Thailand/Ban_Samkha

Khairat school is India's pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ulaanbaatar

Ethopia
http://www.reactivated.net/weblog/archives/2008/10/olpc­ethiopia­updates/

Ghana
http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/2921143251/

Cameroon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/3110907018/in/set­72157611290673682/

Afghanistan refugee camp, Pakistan
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Pakistan/Atlas_School

Colombia
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Colombia

Peru
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Peru

Rwanda
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Rwanda

Iraq
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Iraq

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

Solomon Islands
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Solomon_Islands

Nepal
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Nepal

Deployments worldwide
1.2 million + See Google Maps
Also see: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Property:Number_of_manufactured_laptops

hook, line & sinker
● Free/Open Source Software...
● Cute/rugged laptop...
● Smart kids everywhere!

India
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Khairat_school

Resident artist!

Khairat school is India's first pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

Khairat school is India's pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

Khairat Photos
http://www.zooomr.com/photos/sameerverma/sets/40064/

Bhagmalpur project
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Bhagmalpur
● Location:
● Village: Bhagmalpur
● District: Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh
● Railway Station: Shahganj
● Bus Stop: Banuwadeeh
● School:
● Classes: 1 to 8 class
● Children: 1087
● Teachers: 11
● Internet: none
● Computers: none

What's a laptop?

Under a tree...

Bhagmalpur photos
Bhagmalpur School
http://www.zooomr.com/photos/sameerverma/sets/40063/
Bhagmalpur Village
http://www.zooomr.com/photos/sameerverma/sets/40075/

Jamaica

OLPC Headquarters
1 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Little green machines...

The challenges
Cost
Electricity
Networks
Content
Languages
Pedagogy
Age
Security
Theft
Appropriateness
...

Cost
US $140 at the factory
My Lenovo Thinkpad cost me > US $2500

Electricity
Non­traditional sources...

Yo Yo Charger
http://www.potenco.com/products

Hand Crank Charger
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peripherals/Hand_Crank

Pedal power
OLPC Afghanistan http://www.olpc.af/images/HPM/dscf1324.jpg

Solar Panel
5 Watt/14Volt panel
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Product_News#Solar_Panels

Moo power...
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Cow_Power

Networks
Offline technology
Rise of the Sneakernets

Content
Open content standards (SCORM, IMS­CP)
Creative Commons
Offline Wikipedia
1.6 million books from the Internet Archive

Language Diversity
● India: 28 states and 7 union territories
– The Constitution of India recognizes 22 languages
1. Assamese 9. Konkani 17. Sanskrit
2. Bengali 10. Maithili 18. Santhali
3. Bodo 11. Malayalam 19. Sindhi
4. Dogri 12. Manipuri 20. Tamil
5. Gujarati 13. Marathi 21. Telugu
6. Hindi 14. Nepali 22. Urdu
7. Kannada 15. Oriya
8. Kashmiri 16. Punjabi

Languages
Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian,
Aymara, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa
Melayu, Basque, Bengali, Bengali (India),
Bislama, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese
(China), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese
(Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari,
Dutch, Dzongkha, English, English (South
African), English (US), Estonian, Filipino,
Finnish, French, French (Canada), Friulian,
Fula, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek,
Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian,
Icelandic, Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kannada,
Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kreyol,
Macedonian, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi,
Marovo, Mongolian, Nauruan, Nepali,
Norwegian, Norwegian Bokmål,
Papiamento, Papua New Guinea Pidgin
(Tok Pisin), Pashto, Persian, Polish,
Tutorial: Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Punjabi,
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/452 Quechua, Romanian, Russian, Serbian,
Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian,
Translate: Solomon Islands Pidgin, Sotho, Spanish,
Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Templates,
http://translate.sugarlabs.org/ Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur,
Vietnamese, Walloon, Wolof, Yoruba,
pseudo L10n
Approx. 90+ languages

Pedagogy
http://www.sugarlabs.org/

school...to go

Educational device or trojan horse?
Surprise! Its a REAL computer. It can do REAL computer things!

Laptop can also be a:
● Phone
● Healthcare monitor
● Microfinance platform
● Anthropological documention platform

OLPC XO­1
Antenna
Microphone
Camera
Speaker
Rotate screen USB
Keyboard
Mouse pad
Gamepad
Power
Battery

OLPC San Francisco Bay Area
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_SanFranciscoBayArea
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc­sf

OLPC­SF Deployments
● Exchange of ideas, plans, content, etc.
● Deployments
– Afghanistan (Carol Ruth Silver)
– Jamaica (Sameer Verma/Univ. of the West Indies)
– Madagascar (June Kleider)
– India (Humaira Mahi/Sameer Verma)
– Senegal (Drew and Lick­Wilmerding Schools)
– South Africa (EduWeavers)
– San Francisco (Starr King Elementary)

OLPC­SF resident expert

OLPC­SF and SF State University

In the quad...

On the student union...

OLPC­SF at SFSU Downtown
Center

SFSU Lending Library
● New! (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/SFSU_Lending_Library)
● Library Media Services has 10 XO laptops
– Loan to students, staff and faculty
– HSS 127
– You get:
● XO Laptop
● Charger
● Instructions
● Join the community!

OLPC­SF and SF State University
● Meets once a month at SFSU Down Town Center.
– See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_SanFranciscoBayArea
● IMSA (student association) helps with organizing meetings, donation drives,
translation jams
– http://imsa.sfsu.edu/
● Engineering student started OLPC SF XO Repair Center
– See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_SF_Repair
● Internships?
● Volunteers?
● Course projects?
● More...

How can you help?
● Educators
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educators
● Translators
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Localization
– http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/452
● Developers
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developer
● Getting involved
– http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Getting_involved_in_OLPC
● Sugar
– http://sugarlabs.org

Mailing lists
● Educators
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/educators
● Software Developers
– General development
● http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
– Sugar UI
● http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
All mailing lists are at http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/

Community lists
● Everyone
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc­open
● OLPC San Francisco
– http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc­sf

About the Cover Photo
This photo was taken in
Bhagmalpur, India on November 3,
2008.
I was trying to connect to the Internet
using a cell phone. This was the first
time a computer from Bhagmalpur
had connected to the Internet...ever.
I had to go to the roof of the house,
where I could get a good cell phone
signal, but we had no electricity, so I
had to do all this in the light of a
kerosene lantern.
5.1 billion + of the world's population http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/3011271194/
is still unconnected. Not every one
has 24/7 Internet access.
­­
Sameer Verma