OLPC XO

OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) - made to be an Education Project
http://www.techshout.com/images/olpc-logo.jpg

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We Have A Problem:
''' Almost two billion children in third world countries lack sufficient education. One child out of three does not complete the fifth grade. This dilemma of education that we have will have both individual and societal consequences on the global level. Without proper education, children are consigned to poverty and isolation, having no idea of what might have been possible with education. At the same time, the governments of these third world countries are pushing themselves to adapt to the quick changes of the rapidly growing world. However, what these countries do not understand is that they lack the foundation for growing the economy, which is simply, education. With education as the building blocks of their society, these countries will experience tremendous growth within their economies which then improves the country as a whole, and improves society on the global level. Since we have so many countries lagging in education and under-development, it is creating a problem for the rest of the world, which is ever changing and rapidly growing. Thus, we need to help.

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Why Do We Need To Help?
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Because children are our most valuable resource, they will decide and thus affect the future we will one day live in. In the third world countries, children are often put to labor work and do not have the opportunity to thrive in the academic environment. Kids yearn to learn, and without an education, children become a waste of such a valuable resource.The more we educate children, the more we become developed in the long run.Children who grow up without an education are stunted for the rest of their lives and even when they manage to overcome it.Kids are naturally global and native learners. They need to be excited and empowered by providing tools for thinking, collaboration and expression.Children are our future and should be seen as valuable investments, invest in them wisely, invest in them well and we will see a brighter future!

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The Statistics
We live in a world where countless children are lucky if they live past 5 and then they are only expected to live to the age of 55. Education is a commodity that some cannot take for granted. For instance only 67% of students would make it to grade 5 in the lesser developed countries and only 55% of those students will be literate once they reach adulthood. This is in comparison to the world statistic of which we would see almost 80% of the population pass grade 5 and have 78% of the population being literate. In the less developed countries, about 38% of people live on less than a dollar a day. Even among the developing countries, only 77% of the adult population is literate. Also in developing countries while almost 80% of the population end up finishing primary school, it is rare that half of these students will finish secondary school. Education is a powerful force in any economy, and in order to understand its effect, you have to look at the innovation possible or simple necessities that the developed world takes for granted. Organizations such as UNICEF think that education is so important that they spend about $67 million dollars every year just to obtain simple supplies to help in the education of children in third world countries. The global economy is shifting into an economy of information and technology, and as such technology is going to play an important role, word processing and the internet has led to faster communication between companies and countries. With limited numbers of books and supplies for each student, the ability of children in poverty stricken countries to learn to read and write is limited. However children in some of the undeveloped world do not even have the basic skills which would greatly benefit them when trying to join the rest of the world in utilizing computers for either their educational or economic benefit.

What is The Solution?
The solution to this problem would be the introduction of a relatively inexpensive laptop called the XO Laptop; a children’s machine designed for “learning learning”. Developed in the 1960’s by a MIT Media Lab Professor Seymour Papert then later elaborated on by Alan Kay, this machine will enable children in emerging nations to learn how to learn. The OLPC XO is a highly programmable tool for exploring, creating and problem solving.

Why This Solution?
The OLPC is a non-profit organization set on providing children, even in the most remote regions of the globe, an opportunity to tap into their own potential, to explore the world in their own way, to be exposed to infinite ideas and to contribute some of their own to a more productive and unified society.The goal of the foundation is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. To that end, OLPC is designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and distribution system to provide children outside of the first-world with otherwise unavailable technological learning opportunities.

Educational imapact
Benefit 1: Increased Creativity Having a laptop changes how kids learn in many ways such as: -gives the excitement to learn using a laptop capable of doing various things -Change the students’ attitude from traditional passive way to the new active way. Benefit 2: Increased Efficiency Students can learn by themselves and learn more efficiently. The experiment showed the 27% average score of students in the program over others without laptops. The improvements were recorded only after its first six month.

Community Contact
OLPC creates a new dimension a whole new world of interactivity. It creates a lifelong partnership of shared information and access to knowledge, between the child, who will be a teenager or adult by 2015, and between his or her village and the global community. The children can and will become the purveyors of information to their parents and to the wider village community. Points of community contact and information will be networked together via the laptops for: education, health, business, and social empowerment. Local clinics will be connected between far-flung villages, correct information on AIDS prevention will be distributed, preventive treatment programmes for malaria without expensive out-reach workers will mushroom. Farmers will know the true worth of what they are growing by accessing world prices and prevent being cheated. They will learn to manage agriculture using more sustainable techniques. Deforestation will slow down, water conservation will improve. The stored books in the computer will not only increase children's knowledge but expand adult's knowledge and ability to interact with the world markets

absenteeism
A labour shortage requires an increase in productivity. That is, each teacher must educate more children. From economic theory, we know that there are only two ways to increase productivity, training and technology. There is no known way to train a teacher to handle 50 or more children effectively in the classical way. Moreover, most of the teachers are effectively out of reach for any training program (small, isolated communities, slums).Remains only a single option: Use technology to let children learn on their own more and help the teacher work more efficiently.

If some children can work without supervision, the teacher has time to assist those children that cannot. If Teacher-Student contacts can be handled electronically, this too will save time There are ample theories about children learning without constant supervision. They come under the label of "Student-Centered Learning" (as commented by Robert Lane on July 02, 2007). They all assume that the children should take most of the initiative. Moreover, if you want children to work productively for long periods without supervision, you must take care of their motivation.

Which comes down to making learning interesting and fun. These are strong motives for children to stick with an activity. In general, these two softy words have an undeserved bad image in more conservative circles. However, it is clear that the only other motive that gets children to work unsupervised is fear, and that is well known to hamper learning. Actually, fear leads to avoidance learning, ie, the children will avoid the subjects learned for the rest of their lives.

Economy impact
what One Laptop Per Child is about eliminating poverty. And the belief is very simple. That is that you can eliminate poverty with education, and no matter what solutions you have in this world for big problems like peace or the environment, they all involve education. In some cases, it could be just with education and in no case is it ever without education. And it is particularly focused on primary education

Safety and reliability
The laptop is fully compliant with the European Union’s RoHS Directive. It contains no hazardous materials. Its batteries (NiMH or LiFePo4) contain no toxic heavy metals, plus it features enhanced battery management for an extended recharge-cycle lifetime. It will also tolerate alternate power-charging sources, such as car batteries. To top off the battery—for use at home and where power is not available—the laptop can be hand powered. It will come with at least two of three options: a crank, a pedal, or a pull-cord. It is also possible that children could have a second battery for gang-charging at school while they are using their laptop in class.

Experience shows that the laptop components most likely to fail are its hard drive and internal connectors. The laptop has no hard drive to crash and only two internal cables. For added robustness, the machine’s plastic walls are 2.0mm thick, as opposed to the standard 1.3mm. Its mesh network antennas, which far out-perform those of the typical laptop, double as external covers for the USB ports, which are protected internally as well. The display is also cushioned by internal “bumpers.” The estimated product lifetime is at least five years. To help ensure such durability, the machines will be subject to factory testing to destruction as well as in situ field testing by children.

“For the first time in human history, a compact was made, between the poorer countries who pledged to improve policies, governance and accountability to their own citizens; while wealthy countries pledged to provide the resources The aim was to cut world poverty by half by 2015, saving tens of millions of lives and empowering a billion people into joining the global economy Our purpose is to give every single child in the developing world and the developed world, the power to escape poverty, the power to escape ignorance, the power to escape years of neglect, deprivation and non fulfillment. By doing so we give them a life chance, an opportunity, a window to realize their life potential and join the whole of the global community whatever their own circumstances. Our purpose is to make them leap from a medieval to a 21st century existence. We are not delivering a computer. We are delivering a time machine. A time machine that is so enormously transformational that everything after that is changed. Changed for ever. Imagine this”.

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Product Description
Size of a small textbook -	Built in wireless connection -	Unique screen designed for outdoor viewing -	Built to last; takes into consideration of high heat and humidity -	Designed to be energy efficient

Designed with “built-in” functionality which includes most of what you would get from a conventional consumer laptop. Features such as still life and video photography, voice recording and game play interaction built in the laptop allows it to become a functional educational tool. Other features of the OLPC XO include:

1) Built-in speakers, use for playing music, videos and anything else audio; there is also a headphone jack included

2) Built-in game controllers; a set of four directional buttons which can be utilized when the screen is folded down into handheld mode, creating a self-contained e-book reader, media device or a game player

3) Built-in microphone for voice recording, also comes with a microphone jack

4) Back-lit display which functions in full-color mode, must like the conventional laptops; as well as a high resolution, low power black-and-white (readable in sunlight) for children with outdoor school

5) Screen rotator which allows the laptop to be viewed in whatever orientation set

The "Break-Down" of the Computer
Dimensions: The approximate dimensions of the OLPC is 243mm x 228mm x 32mm The weight of the OLPC with the LiFeO battery is 1.45kg and with the NiMH battery is 1.58kg. This laptop has a pivoting and reversible display as well as a dirt and moisture resistant system but it does not have a fan to cool the system.

The Display: The OLPC has a liquid crystal display (LCD) which is a 7.5” dual-mode TFT display. The total viewing area is 152.4mm by 114.3mm. The monochrome display has a high-resolution and a sunlight-readable monochrome mode. The color display has standard resolution with a Quincunx-sampled, and a transmissive color mode. The power consumption of the LCD is 0.1 watts with the back-light of and 0.2-1.0 watt consumption with the back-light on. This shows that the OLPC is a very low power usage system and has a long battery life.

http://wowio.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/xo-sunlight-big.jpg

The Keyboard: The keyboard has more than 80 keys and has a sealed rubber membrane key switch assembly. The keyboard can be set to many languages which include: Thai, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, West African, Urdu, Mongolian, Cyrillic and Amharic. The gamepad has two sets of four direction cursor control keys. The OLPC also has a touch-pad which is a resistive touch-pad and it supports a written-input mode. The official name of this touch-pad is the APLS Electric Dual resistive touch-pad.

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Audio: The audio system has internal stereo speakers, an amplifier, an internal monophonic microphone, and input jacks for external headphones and a microphone.

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The OLPC has wireless networking with dual adjustable rotating coaxial antennas it also supports diversity reception. The OLPC is capable of mesh (Integrated 802.11b/g (2.4GHz) interface; 802.11s) when CPU is powered down. Also it has a Marvell Libertas 88W8388 controller and a 88W8015 radio. Video camera: the camera for the OLPC has an integrated color vision camera with 640 by 480 resolution.

External connectors: The DC power has a 6mm connector and 11-18 V of usable input as well as -32 to 40 V of input is tolerated. The power draw is limited to 15W. The headphone output is a standard 3.5mm 3-pun switched audio jack. The microphone input is a standard 3.5mm 2-pin switched mono microphone jack. The OLPC has 3 USB 2.0 connectors which are up to 1A of power supplied.

Battery: The battery of the OLPC has a 2 or 4 cell LiFePO4, or a 5 cell NiMH with approximately a 6V series configuration. The batteries have a life of 22.8 Watt-hours for the LiFePO4 and 16.5 Watt-hours for the NiMH battery. Both batteries are fully enclosed in a hard-case and are both user removable. The OLPC has a thermal cover and over-current sensors with a cut-off switch to help protect the battery. The batteries have a minimum 2,000 charge and discharge cycles. The power management is critical for the OLPC.

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Key environment specifications: The altitude is from -15 to 3048m when operating and -15 to 12192m when not operating. When the OLPC is closed it is very well sealed and very well protected against rain and dust, which is ideal for students in third world countries who have poor living conditions. The OLPC have 2mm plastic walls compared to 1.3mm thick walls in most standard systems.

Benefits of this Tool
By allowing children to grow with the laptop, they are able to engage in learning through technology which is crucial to the learning trend in today’s world. The OLPC XO acts as a “gateway” to other technologies that they will experience in whatever they choose to pursue. OLPC’s perspective on learning is that you learn as you do, thus more learning comes from more doing. This leads to the OLPC XO allowing the children to express and explore rather than to learn from instruction.

Distribution
The OLPC is to be distributed to the most remote places on this globe. These places were researched and decided on by the organization and are as follows:

Uruguay 202,000 laptops Peru 145,000 laptops USA (G1G1) 72,000 laptops Mexico 50,000 laptops Rwanda 16,000 laptops Birmingham, AL, USA 14,000 laptops Haiti 13,000 laptops Afghanistan 11,000 laptops Mongolia 10,100 laptops Nepal 6,000 laptops Ethiopia 5,000 laptops Oceania 5,000 laptops * Solomon Islands * Papua New Guinea * Nauru * Kiribati * Vanuatu * New Caledonia * Niue * Tuvalu Cambodia 3,200 laptops Colombia 2,600 laptops Brazil 2,600 laptops Lebanon 2,000 laptops Thailand 505 laptops India 505 laptops Mozambique 200 laptops South Africa 200 laptops Iraq 200 laptops Ghana 10,000 laptops Mali 30 laptops Malaysia 100 laptops

Issues with distribution
Given the laptop was designed to be sold for $100.00, non-profit organizations cannot designate where the laptops will be sent unless they buy in bulk of 100 laptops per purchase. The pricing scheme goes as follows, with 100+ laptops, they are sold at $299.00/unit; 1000+ laptops sold at $249/unit and 10 000+ laptops for $199/unit.

Conclusion
Given the fact that only a small portion of the world is educated and literate, today's society is in dire need of an aid to help the poverty stricken communities and countries to excel in both education and technology. Because the today's world is in such a crisis, those who have been given the benefit of education and technology must step in to help. The consequences of not doing so, hold very high stakes for the future of this generation and many generations following it. The world economy heavily relies on full international cooperation and communication, where countries can share and distribute the scarce resources that we need to survive on. Without the world's full cooperation to do so only limits our abilities to grow to our full potential. With the introduction of the OLCP XO, the solution to a better future is handed to the children of the third world countries. This laptop was designed to allow children to learn how to learn and it also allows them to then join with the world in communication and technology. The skills these children will learn about technology will help them catch up with the rest of the world as the gap between the impoverished and the wealthy grows ever so quickly. The development of these children is no doubt a long-term solution, however it is worth our precious time and effort since this may be the only solution in creating a better future for our children.