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In troubling news circulating this week it appears that the One Laptop per Child project has shifted its focus soley to large scale deployments.

“A program for donors to employ between 100 or more laptops for small-scale deployments, called “Give a School,” has been removed from the participation page of the nonprofit’s Web site. The nonprofit is now offering options to directly donate laptops or to make corporate purchases.”(Source)

This could be a serious problem! While there are plenty of XOs out there (near here) to accomplish things with, being unable to buy more units is going to have a serious impact on how things proceed for a lot of the community that supports the OLPC project.

Pia has just posted a detailed list of suggestions if you were ever interested in getting your hands on an OLPC XO laptop in Australia and New Zealand. Before she does, though, she makes an important note that I feel that I should copy here. I’ve seen people (especially at ZDnet) somewhat miffed once they finally get their hands on one. And that’s simply because the recipients were middle aged men who thought they were getting something like an EEEPC. So;

Before outlining how you can get an XO, it is important to understand that these computers are not like normal laptops, they really are specialist collaboration devices meant for children aged 5-12 to be used in the classroom as part of their normal education process. They won’t necessarily make great gifts in isolation, because most of the value comes in collaborating and sharing with others, particularly in an educational setting.

Check out the post over at OLPCFriends and get involved!

The One Laptop per Child project, due to the financial crisis, has had to reduce its operating costs like so many other companies. From the official Wiki:

“Like many other nonprofits that are facing tough economic times, One Laptop per Child must downsize in order to keep costs in line with fewer financial resources. Today we are reducing our team by approximately 50% and there will be salary reductions for the remaining 32 people. While we are saddened by this development, we remain firmly committed to our mission of getting laptops to children in developing countries. We thank team members who are departing for their contributions to this important mission.” (Source)

While this is sad news I think the hard yards of this project have been done, in many regards. The XO-1 units are fully operational, have a half-a-million user base and a strong support community. The emerging netbook market, spawned by OLPC’s demonstration that you don’t need to pay thousands for a laptop, is going to give birth to technical developments that future XO models will take advantage of. But since the development that I’m interested in (read: content) was not the primary directive of OLPC Inc staff I don’t see this affecting the day-to-day lives of people currently using the tech.  A weak global financial economy is showing us how vulnerable we have made ourselves – OLPC’s rich social economy will demonstrate the true value of the project in the coming years.

While manning the EOL booth at eGames 2008 I was approached by the Internode content team, expensive video camera and all, to do a short interview about the One Laptop per Child  program. Mostly it’s a rundown of the XO unit itself, but we talk about the ideas behind the project and what it might mean for Australia, too.

You can watch the whole video here!

Pia is pretty clever. Or maybe she’s just showing us how easy things are. Learn how to replace a broken XO screen while watching tuesday night TV!

Just in from the mailing list:

“Yesterday, iGoogle launched “Themes for Causes” with One Laptop per Child as one of their first 25 causes. “Themes for Causes” are ways to customize your Google homepage to show your support.

http://www.laptop.org/igoogle”

I’ve enabled it on my account.. and i’ve most certainly seen nicer themes, I have to say. Still, a cool way to show support!

The Journal has a report about a significant new OLPC deployment in the USA:

Chester Community School in Pennsylvania is deploying 1,400 XO laptops to students, one of the larger deployments of laptops from One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) in the United States. The initial rollout will begin this week.

PA Charter School To Deploy 1,400 OLPC XO Laptops : December 2008 : THE Journal

Pia’s gone and done a five point explanation as to why OLPC trials in Australia are important. First, the need. We’ve got such a range of educational situations here in this country, and there is most definitely room for this kind of technology. Second, it helps free up money for similar projects in a tricky kind of way. Third, the strong community support around the project can be capitalised on, not just for Australia’s sake. Fourth, it will give us city slickers a chance to connect with people and knowledge that has previously been unshared. And fifth, again because of Australia’s uniqueness, remote training lessons can be learned here.

Head over to her blog to read the details, convincing!

From the official OLPC blog… if you read the OLPC Oceania interview it looks as though the two could dovetail – Michael Hutak’s focus is definitely on the broader, large scale side of things. This could be like opening the flood gates;

For the past year, we have been running a Give Many large-scale donation program with little fanfare, to support groups that have bought XOs in hundreds and thousands for their own school or regional projects…

We have lowered the cost of participation dramatically – to $22,000 for a 100-laptop projects in the neediest parts of the world – and now include in that cost things that all programs need: shipping to an international airport, a spare parts kit, and invitations for organizers to learning and deployment workshops that we are organizing a few times each year.

Change the World one school at a time : Give 100 update | One Laptop per Child

Over at OLPCNews they are carrying a two part interview with OLPC Oceania’s Michael Hutak and Ian Thomson, OLPC/RICS Coordinator, Secretariat of the Pacific Community. They take a look at the efforts to date in the pacific region and talk about what is to come next. The discussion includes a fair bit on the strategy of deployment, and contains some interesting numbers.

If you want further info on the nine pilots being run in various countries from Papua New Guinea, Niue to Nauru, check out part one of this interview.