Prof. Claudia Jacy Barenco Abbas, P.hD. abbas.claudia@yahoo.com; barenco@usb.ve

Outline

• Introduction to OLPC• Some examples of deployment of OLPC• How is it free ?• Hardware and Software• Network• Crypto and Security• Interest in Middle East• Application Form• Contacts and Answers

AfghanistanIn December 2008 deployment team received 10 XO's for a test lab which will be based in PAIWASTOON office. XOs were provided by the Ministry of Education Afghanistan.These XO's are used for experiments and testings in OLPC-AF Office by its technical team, in order to develop and test new activities and software for XO's. Two Educational Trainers from MoE joined our team, together with Technical Trainers they will train teachers in schools where XOs will be deployed. 11th February 2009 was the 1st day of teaching with XOs in our first pilot school in Afghanistan.

PakistanAn OLPC pilot project was launched at Atlas Public School (a slum area school) on March 15, 2008. Although an understanding was made with the Principal to keep the school open during summer, and run an OLPC camp where the students may be able to devote more time to learning with and using their XO. However, the owner of the building has decided to shut down the school for “economically viable” activities. However, the devoted Principal is frantically searching for another space where the may be re-opened.

IraqOn October 7th, 2008 the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) for the province of Muthanna celebrated their second XO distribution. Muthanna is a remote, agricultural province on Iraq’s Saudi Arabian border, very poor and sparsely-populated. Nevertheless, Dick Torborg of the PRT reports that the second deployment  which brings the total number of XOs in the province to 200. attracted an impressively large gathering, including provincial leaders and local media. Torborg says the kids and school community were in high spirits. There are plans to locally distribute a minimum of 200 additional machines by the end of the year. The OLPC team in Iraq consists of Torborg, together with representatives of Iraq’s Director of General Education and members of the Yakthah Institute, a local NGO.

(Sabra and Santilla)

Palestine

About One Laptop per Child

•One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a project started by Nicholas Negroponte at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a core of MIT Media Lab personnel.

•The organization has grown to include passionate people creating software and hardware and sustainable community involvement to fulfill the educational mission of OLPC.

•The mission for OLPC is to create educational opportunitiesfor the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning.

How is it free ?•The XO Laptop will bring children technology as means to freedom and empowerment. •The success of the One Laptop per Child project in the face of overwhelming global complexity and diversity will only be possible by embracing openness, and by providing the laptop’s users and developers with a profound level of freedom.

•As children grow and pursue new ideas, their software and the tools should be able to grow with them and provide a gateway to other technologies.

OLPC project must:

•Include source code and allow its modification, so that our developers, the governments  that are our partners, and the children who use the laptop can look under the hood to change the software to fit diverse and changing needs.•Provide a self-hosting development platform.•Allow distribution of modified copies of software under the same license so that the freedoms that our developers depend upon for success remain available to the users and developers who define the next generation of the software. •Our users and customers must be able to localize software into their language, fix the software to remove bugs, and repurpose the software to fit their needs.•Allow redistribution without permission — either alone or as part of an aggregate distribution — because we can not know and should not control how the tools we create will be re-purposed in the future. •Our children outgrow our platform, and our software should be able to grow with them.•Support and promote open and patent unencumbered data interchange and file formats.be supported by a free toolchain — for instance, they must be able to be built using unencumbered compilers and other tools

Laptop

The laptop has a 500-megahertz processor and 256 megabytes of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) with 1 gigabyte of flash memory. The laptops have Web browsers and their own Wi-Fi system, the ability to connect to the Internet wirelessly. Each is on a "mesh network," meaning all the laptops can see each other, without any setup, even if there is no wireless connection nearby.

Crypto and SecurityPrinciples : Open design 

The laptop's security must not depend upon a secret design implemented in hardware or software.

No lockdown  Though in their default settings, the laptop's security systems may impose various prohibitions on the user's actions, there must exist a way for these security systems to be disabled. When that is the case, the machine will grant the user complete control.

No reading required  Security cannot depend upon the user's ability to read a message from the computer and act in an informed and sensible manner. While disabling a particular security mechanism may require reading, a machine must be secure out of the factory if given to a user who cannot yet read.

Unobtrusive security  Whenever possible, the security on the machines must be behind the scenes, making its presence known only through subtle visual or audio cues, and never getting in the user's way. Whenever in conflict with slight user convenience, strong unobtrusive security is to take precedence, though utmost care must be taken to ensure such allowances do not seriously or conspicuously reduce the usability of the machines. As an example, if a program is found attempting to violate a security setting, the user will not be prompted to permit the action; the action will simply be denied. If the user wishes to grant permission for such an action, she can do so through the graphical security center interface.

No user passwords  With users as young as 5 years old, the security of the laptop cannot depend on the user's ability to remember a password. Users cannot be expected to choose passwords when they first receive computers.

No unencrypted authentication  Authentication of laptops or users will not depend upon identifiers that are sent unencrypted over the network. This means no cleartext passwords of any kind will be used in any OLPC protocol and Ethernet MAC addresses will never be used for authentication.

Out-of-the-box security  The laptop should be both usable and secure out-of-the-box, without the need to download security updates when at all possible.

Limited institutional PKI  The laptop will be supplied with public keys from OLPC and the country or regional authority (e.g. the ministry or department of education), but these keys will not be used to validate the identity of laptop users. The sole purpose of these keys will be to verify the integrity of bundled software and content. Users will be identified through an organically-grown PKI without a certified chain of trust — in other words, our approach to PKI is KCM, or key continuity management.

No permanent data loss  Information on the laptop will be replicated to some centralized storage place so that the student can recover it in the event that the laptop is lost, stolen or destroyed.

If this subject matter interests you, please read the complete Bitfrost specification, join the OLPC security mailing list, share your thoughts, and join the discussion.

Crypto and Security

… And the story is not over, as Negroponte’s post, which also describes a new focus on deploying computers to the Middle East, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan, makes clear.

Negroponte said : ….With regard to deployments:1. Latin America will be spun off into a separate support unit2. Sub-Saharan Africa will become a major learning hub3. The Middle East, Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan will becomea major focus

Article on: OLPC Lays Off Half Its Staff—Refocusing Mission and Talking About the $0 LaptopRobert Buderi 1/7/09

Matt KellerDirector for Europe, Middle East, Africa

Matt Keller is Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa for One Laptop per Child. In this capacity, he works with governments around the world to introduce the XO to children living in the poorest and remote regions of the world. He also works to develop implementation strategies and lobbies wealthy nations to provide resources to least developed countries as a way to acquire this technology.

www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/090408-olpcs-dual-boot-lin - [Cached Version]Published on: 9/4/2008    Last Visited: 9/8/2008   "Some countries have been adamant about using Microsoft software," said Matt Keller, OLPC's director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, in an interview Wednesday.

A high-level government official in Egypt was among the first to tell OLPC that his country only wanted the XO if it could run Windows.

Now that OLPC has announced the dual-boot version of the laptop, Egypt plans to use them in schools, Keller said.

The dual-boot XO laptop was expected to be available in August or September 2008. The new device will allow users to boot-up the OS they prefer, either Microsoft

Windows XP or the Linux-based Sugar OS originally found on the XO. The new device is important to the spread of the XO around the world. OLPC started as an attempt to build a US$100 laptop and work with governments to pass them out to kids in poor nations around the world. But some governments have said they don't want the XO laptop, no matter how cheap it is, unless it has Windows.

Phyton Programming LanguagePython was intended to be a highly readable language. It is designed to have an uncluttered visual layout, frequently using English keywords where other languages use punctuation. Python requires less boilerplate than traditional manifestly-typed structured languages such as C or Pascal, and has a smallernumber of syntactic exceptions and special cases than either of these.[30]

Project Title & Shipment DetailName of Project: (WEB-PUBLISHED) Shipping Address You've Verified:

IS FEDEX AND UPS SHIPPABLE (NO POST OFFICE BOXES) INCLUDES A PHONE NUMBER CONTAINS TEAM LEADER'S LEGAL NAME

1. Number of Laptops (or other hardware) You Request to Borrow: Loan Length—How Many Months:

2. Team ParticipantsName(s) & Contact Info: (include all email addresses & phone numbers)

Teams of more than 1 person are not required, but favored! Employer and/or School: Past Experience/Qualifications:

3. ObjectivesProject Objectives: (WEB-PUBLISHED)

Concrete proposals with defined, measurable outcomes are much more likely to result in a laptop than "it would be cool to play with these and demo them".

4. Plan of ActionPlan and Procedure for Achieving the Stated Objectives:

5. NeedsWhy is this project needed? Locally? In the greater OLPC/Sugar community? Outside the community? Why can't this project be done in emulation using non-XO machines? Why are you requesting the number of machines you are asking for?

Will you consider (1) salvaged/rebuilt or (2) damaged XO Laptops?

6. Sharing DeliverablesProject URL:

Please web-publish this entire completed proposal, removing any sections affecting your personal privacy. Ask if you want help!

How will you convey tentative ideas & results back to the OLPC/Sugar community,prior to completion? How will the final fruits of your labor be distributed to children or community members worldwide? Will your work have any possible application or use outside our community?

If yes, how will these people be reached? Have you investigated working with nearby XO Lending Libraries or Project Groups?

7. Quality/MentoringWould your Project benefit from Support, Documentation and/or Testing people? Teachers' input into Usability? How will you promote your work? Can we help you with an experienced mentor from the OLPC/Sugar community? If YES: specify the kind of Ongoing Mentoring that will benefit you most.

If NO: specify who will help you share your progress, creations & results.

8. Timeline (Start to Finish)Please include a Proposed timeline for your Project life-cycle: (this can be in the form of Month 1, Month 2, etc rather than specific dates)

Include a couple milestones, even if tentative. Specify how you prefer to communicate your ongoing progress and obstacles!

[ ] I agree to pass on the laptop(s) to a local OLPC group or other interested contributors in case I do not have need for the laptop(s) anymore or in case my project progress stalls.

Prof. Abbas,

Thank you for your interest in the OLPC project. I would be delighted to explore the opportunity with you.

We have had some prior discussions with the governments in both Egypt and Jordan. There is a very small project actually running in Jordan now. We had a well-attended conference in Amman earlier this year.

What do you recommend as a next step in this discussion?

Best regards,Robert FadelVP, International OperationsOne Laptop per Child

CONTACTS:

• Mr. Matt Keller: Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa <mattmkeller@gmail.com> • Dr. Nicholas Negroponte: <nn@media.mit.edu>• Mr. Adam Holt: <volunteer@laptop.org>• Mr. Robert Fadel:<fadel@media.mit.edu>