Presentation at SF State University in Prof. Lutfus Sayeed's class on Information Systems and StrategyOct 10, 2007

One Laptop Per Child

Sameer Verma, Ph.D.sverma@sfsu.edu

Grown-ups, Take a Number

Give 1, Get 1

One donated in your name

Nov 12: + 2 weeks

25,000 units only

$399

http://xogiving.org/

Outline

Introduction Education Laptop FOSS

Disclaimer

I do not work for OLPC!

Enthusiast/developer

Interests: Translations, UI and networking

OLPC: Excellent example of disruptive technology innovation

education (the student-driven learning)

hardware (why your laptop sucks)

software (power of FOSS at work)

Somebody is finally thinking of the children!

Education

Its an education project, not a laptop project.

Nicholas Negroponte, Founder - OLPC

OLPC's Goal:

To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.

a different generation

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

a different generation

-my compi!

Mira Verma

Building Content

Constructionism is a philosophy of education in which children learn by doing and making

Collaborative activities

chat, record and see, music, write, read...

E-toys

Build books with multimedia content

Electronic books created and stored on the school server

Think Lego

Learning outside the box

With sufficient self-confidence, teachers can learn from children without risk of unraveling the fabric of educationquite the contrary, improving it.

Children must not only own the laptop, but take it home. In so doing the whole family will benefit.

The child is not the object of change but the agent of change.

Sugar, because its sweet!

Sugar

Focus on activities, not applications

Interface Sugar

GNOME based

Borders + center wheel

Wheel is also a metaphor for available resources

Run your own Sugar environment

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

Activities

Write

Yes, but does it run Word? No!

Chat

XMPP (open standard) based

Browse

Firefox/gecko + flash + AJAX

Record

stills and video

More activities... http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities

the XO laptop

Laptop

7.5 inch diagonal screen at 1200x900 (200 dpi)

800x600 in grayscale

Sunlight readable!

Wi-fi, USB(x3), mic, speakers, camera, SD

Screen rotates to tablet mode

Water resistant keyboard

walk in the rain with it!

More laptop

Laptop, turned on its head

All electronics are in the upper section, except the keyboard.

Easy to replace either component

Carry handle also acts as base stabilizer

Wi-fi rabbit ears double up as latches and increase range

Any 5 to 15 volt power supply will do

plugin charger, car battery, crank/yoyo power, solar panel

Charge!

Green

Looks green, works green

Fully recyclable

5 year life span

Idle power consumption

Desktop 80 watts

Laptop 20 watts

OLPC 1 watt

More green

Power consumption at about 10% of typical laptop

The laptop lifetime is 5 years or 2.5 times longer than a typical laptop

Half the size and weight of a typical laptop

Goal: not a single XO laptop should end up in a landfill

Power innovations

Batteries that last 4x longer

Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4)

Currently at ~ 5hrs, final goal ~10 hrs

Display refresh possible with board powered off

0.1 watt in grayscale (sunlight readable) mode

Mesh Networking

Mesh does not require central hub-like infrastructure

Wireless mesh works even when board powers off

Look Ma! No moving parts!

No fans, no hard drive, nothing spins.

1GB Flash + 256 MB RAM

USB storage

SD slot

Only thing that moves is the screen when it swivels over to tablet mode.

AMD Geode processor runs cool.

Linux in the box

Custom Fedora based distro

GNOME-based

Ported applications must follow OLPC HCI guidelines

Collaboration

One of the tenets is to be as open as possible

World wide forum for:

Concept, user requirements, ideas

Design of hardware, software, networks

Development done in a fish bowl

Testing, debugging, pilot studies

Anybody can participate

Meritocracy rules!

Economy of scale

Mass production will reduce cost

Target $ 100, current $188

Sell directly to governments

multiple of hundred thousands

Infrastructure investment by governments

commitment

continued evolution

Perhaps the cost will go below $100

Economy of scope

XO units for the US market

Run Sugar on a cheap PC

Other vendors

Initial naysayers: Intel, Microsoft

Classmate PC

small form factor (children), runs Windows XP, Linux

$400?

ASUS

Eee pc

small form factor (business), runs Linux

$ 199?

Security: Bitfrost Goals

No user passwords

Users as young as 5 years old, cannot remember a password.

No unencrypted authentication

Authentication of laptops or users will not depend upon unencrypted data over the network.

Out-of-the-box security

The laptop should be both usable and secure out-of-the-box.

Limited institutional cryptography

Keys will not be used to validate the identity of laptop users.

Security: Bitfrost Approach

Open design

The laptop's security must not depend upon a secret design.

No lockdown

There must exist a way for the security systems to be disabled for maintenance.

No reading required

Security cannot depend upon the user's ability to read a message from the computer.

Unobtrusive security

Whenever possible, the security on the machines must be behind the scenes.

Free and Open Source

FOSS was the only option that was flexible enough for this project

No vendor lock-in on formats

No royalties on redistribution

Perhaps the first example of a software project that has forced hardware manufacturers to modify their way of business.

FOSS: What does it mean?

OLPC manifesto

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

Richard Stallman's Four freedoms

The Open Source Definition

Richard Stallman's Four Freedoms

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.

Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

The Open Source Definition

1. Free Redistribution

2. Source Code

3. Derived Works

4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

7. Distribution of License

8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software

10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

How can you help?

Educators

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

Translators

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

Developers

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

Getting involved

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

http://xogiving.org/