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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

It comes as a surprise but OLPC Australia has announced an Australian Give 1 Get 1 program, similar to those currently running overseas. Details are sparse but this is most exciting news, especially for those individuals I talked to during iDEF, who were very very keen to get involved. “Early 2009″ is the penciled in date. IT Wire is carrying a story, and you can always keep an eye on OLPC Australia’s page.

This is a question I get asked a lot. Answering it usually involves me running off on my “The name ‘One LAPTOP per Child’ is a bit of a marketing blunder since this is an education project” rant. Thankfully there’s a little video that’s come out along with the launch of the latest Give 1 Get 1 program. Mmmm answers in short video format.

Given the success of the G1G1 (Give Get One) it was only a matter of time till they ran something similar again. This time around addressing the supply/demand issue (G1G1 suffered serious waiting times/delivery issues because of supply chain problems.

“Although the first iteration of the ‘G1G1’ program was extremely successful and sold more then 185,000 laptops, the delivery of the laptops in the USA did not run as smoothly as we anticipated. Selling the laptops on Amazon.com will provide us with the resources to process and ship the laptops globally in a timely fashion.” according to the Amazon press release.

Sales will not be limited to US residents, according to some posts, and in theory donors will be able to pick a country to send the second XO to. There’s a lot of chatter regarding this floating around, not all of it official. More to follow…