Dear Fouad, Many thanks for writing and sending us this very informative,
useful piece
on various issues surrounding OLPC.

Subsequent to Prof. Negroponte's visit to Pakistan about a month ago, and
then few news items announcing the formation of a dedicated task force by
the Federal Minister for IT to work for introducing OLPCs in Pakistan, some
discussion was initiated on pakistanictpolicy group to discuss plus minuses.
There was some discussion on PASHA group as well.

Fouad, while you have very ably analyzed it from technical and financial
viability point of view, my argument is very basic.

-     First thing first, whose domain is it any way to decide about OLPCs in
Pakistan? Can we leave such important, huge decision on a sole "IT" task
force, which I am sure is not representative and inclusive of all
stakeholders.  Folks, it is NOT purchasing only an IT tool for our children
where MoIT may solely decide, BUT this decision calls for total social
re-engineering at all levels particularly in our educational system...and
yes, the parents as well... Am talking about OLPCs optimal utilization.

-    By the way, our Federal Minister for Education has categorically stated
that Pakistan is NOT part of OLPC Project. They had refused the offer to be
part of this initiative.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/science/story/2007/01/070102_laptop_100.shtml Now,
can we safely say that various government functionaries e.g. Ministry of
Education and Ministry of IT need to work together and take a joint agreed
decision.

-    What will happen to indigenous technological solutions already under
development in the country (e.g. Sirius in question). If at all, OLPCs are
funded, how will local IT Industry react to this imported solution and
overseas influence in local development scenario.

-    My humble suggestion will be.... Let's not get carried away with all
the hype being created around these machines and decide only on fair facts.
Quite a lot of them are mind boggling, presented by Fouad already.

-    I keep hearing people saying that OLPC is very exciting BUT get a life
folks.... it has the potential to turn into a major disaster as well for
countries like Pakistan. Look at the financial figures involved and massive
technical inputs needed which Fouad has presented in his following email.

-     Knowing our track record, our content generation is very weak. This
will be another major major challenge. After all, NOT these machines but the
content will make all the difference. Have we thought of any viable solution
to this as well?

Please please please No decision in haste....and NO executive decision!

All concerned people need to be very vigilant. We really don't want our
decision makers take any silly decision which ultimately bear any suffering
on our people particularly children. We have already had enough on various
fronts...

My suggestion will be that first of all relevant stakeholders should have
open debate on all aspects of OLPC. Be realistic, analytical and practical
while taking a decision... An informed decision please!.....and NO executive
decision!

At my personal level, I have lot more concerns and I wish these are listened
to by our decision makers.

Best wishes and regards.

Shahzad Ahmad
Bytesforall, Pakistan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fouad Riaz Bajwa" <bajwa@...>
To: <pakistanictpolicy@yahoogroups.com>;
<bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com>; <pakgrid@yahoogroups.com>;
<iosn-general@...>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 4:07 AM
Subject: [pakistanictpolicy] One Laptop Per Child - Will UAE possibly
support Laptops for every child in Pakistan?


One Laptop Per Child - The debate continues for OLPCs in Pakistan

Will UAE possibly support Laptops for every child in Pakistan?

[Fouad Riaz Bajwa, FOSS Advocate, Lahore - Pakistan, 06-06-2007]

OLPC has been long debated whether it will be shipped within its initially
announced price of US$100 per laptop and will it be affordable by developing
world countries where national budgets may reach the total cost of buying
these laptops for every child. Currently the true cost of the OLPC possibly
stands at US$208 and if it carries a 5-year long-term support plan, the
price could jump beyond US$ 972 per laptop. OLPC is trying to identify
various solutions to overcome this issue.

In a Q&A session with Silicon.com's Jo Best last month, Nicholas Negroponte,
founder, One Laptop Per Child shared that in central America there are eight
countries grouping together in a single block to purchase laptops and he was
talking to the Philippines and Pakistan. A viable solution is being
presented through talking with rich countries to help poor countries.
Finland is interested in Namibia, UAE is interested in helping Pakistan, and
France is looking at countries in Africa.

Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz stated in November 2006 that the
Government of Pakistan will consider the feasibility for making low-cost
laptop computers available to school going children in Pakistan. With this,
newspapers recently carried the news that Pakistan is gearing up to buy the
OLPCs "One Laptop Per Child" for every child in Pakistan and this may
possibly be done with the support by the United Arab Emirates as mentioned
earlier by Negroponte.

There has been a good amount of discussion whether this investment will be
successful or not by Wayan Vota, who launched the OLPCNews.com blog to
monitor the OLPC project's development because he has been quite skeptical
it can achieve its aims. The blog presents an interesting debate that the
United Arab Emirates funding OLPC XO's for Pakistan would be a whole other
situation. UAE might be a rich federation of 7 emirates, but 40% of its $35
Billion dollar budget would be consumed by a $13.5 Billion dollar purchase
of $208 dollar laptops for Pakistan's 65 million children. Take into account
the real cost of the OLPC, $972 dollars per laptop, and the cost balloons to
a budget smashing $63 Billion, or almost double U.A.E.'s entire budget. This
debate still stands unquestioned.

An interesting comment shedding light on the state of affairs in OLPC
project target stakeholder countries was found on the OLPC wiki made by a
Pakistani citizen Yahya Malik Kent says that, "How can we get a Project
started in Pakistan for remote villages where even the government employees
(teachers) donot like to work? Can I help to get some project stated on
private basis and not going through the government?" Interestingly, no one
at the OLPC website has replied or removed this comment.

Since the OLPC carries a LinuxBIOS, it was originally anticipated in
Pakistan that the OLPC was to carry Linux localized in to Urdu in light of
the Ubuntu-Linux Localization Efforts being carried out by the Ubuntu l10n
Translation Team, members of Ubuntu Pakistan. The OLPC website carries an
official page on localization efforts initially identified by FOSSFP: Free
and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan and continued towards
inclusion of Urdu Language officially in the international distribution
versions of Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu Linux.

But according to a recent press release by OLPC, it has announced a user
interface (UI) called Sugar for its XO laptops. The Sugar UI has been
jointly developed with Red Hat and Pentagram being a purpose-built
educational environment for children using the OLPC laptops. According to
Walter Bender, OLPC's president of software and content, "The Sugar
interface has been designed to suit the way children understand and describe
their world and relationships. Most importantly, Sugar is easy for children
to learn to use, yet it's also rich and capable of fostering unbounded
discovery, learning, and exploration."

The XO machines are still being tweaked, and Sugar isn't expected to be
tested by any kids until February. By July or so, several million are
expected to reach Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan,
Thailand and the Palestinian territory. Negroponte said three more African
countries might sign on in the next two weeks. The Inter-American
Development Bank is trying to get the laptops to multiple Central American
countries.

The machines are being made by Quanta Computer Inc., and countries will get
versions specific to their own languages. Governments or donors will buy the
laptops for children to own, along with associated server equipment for
their schools. The project itself has gotten at least $29 million in funding
from companies including Google Inc., News Corp. and Red Hat.

About One Laptop per Child

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization created by Nicholas
Negroponte and other faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design,
manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently
inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to acknowledge and
modern forms of education. The laptops will be sold to governments and
issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child. These
machines will be rugged, open source, and so energy efficient that they can
be powered by a child manually. Mesh networking will give many machines
Internet access from one connection. The pricing goal will start near $100
and then steadily decrease.

Online References:
------------------

One Laptop per Child http://www.laptop.org

What is the Real Cost of the OLPC? OLPC News.
http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/price/the_real_cost_of_the.html

Silicon.com's Jo Best Q&A with Nicholas Negroponte, founder, One Laptop Per
Child http://hardware.silicon.com/desktops/0,39024645,39164527,00.htm

Govt to consider for making low-cost laptop computers available to school
going children: PM. Associated Press of Pakistan
http://www.app.com.pk/n23.htm

Yahya Malik Kent's comment on OLPC website
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PAKISTAN

FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
http://www.fossf.org

OLPC Urdu Localization Section http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Urdu

Press Release Source: OLPC Announces First-of-Its-Kind User Interface for XO
Laptop Computer - Sugar Interface is Designed to Foster Collaborative
Learning among Children in Developing Countries. Wednesday January 3, 8:30
am ET http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070103/20070103005194.html?.v=1

Novel software drives '$100 laptop'
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/01/02/hundred.dollarlaptop.ap/index.html

Fouad Bajwa's Linux and FOSS Industry Analysis Blog http://www.TuxWatch.com

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