Neither rhyme nor reason

As soon as people found out I had an OLPC XO it seemed I became flavour of the month. - they all wanted to see it. My first engagement was the monthly talk at SLUG. I prepared 15 slides for a presentation that introduced the mission of the project, a few photos from a pilot in Nigeria, and a walkthrough of the hardware and software components. I then did a demo using the Build 385 qemu image as well as the XO itself. Anyway I got a lot of interaction, and lots of people wanting to have a play. Most were pretty supportive of the project. One though didn’t think they would last very long and would soon be wrecked by the kids not knowing the value of that. While I didn’t think that rang true, I didn’t have much to back my defence at the time.

That changed today however. A while ago I volunteered to spend some time on the Linux Australia stand at CeBIT. Anyway, as I now had an XO I was encouraged to bring that along. Here it also got a lot of interest. Quite a few people had heard of the project, but there still was a lot that hadn’t. What was really funny was that every second person wanted to know what happened the wind-up handle! (Which of course, disappeared from the design when it was found that it put too much stress on the unit, and also was difficult for young kids to use). I
managed to pretty well talk myself hoarse - I certainly enjoyed the spruiking.

What also was very encouraging was talking to a Nigerian fellow who currently lives in New Zealand. I queried him about the concept that the kids would wreck the machines. He said it would be absolutely the opposite! These kids would guard their machines with the life - particular if they have little else of value. He spoke of seeing kids that had exercise books that they would write on school with a pencil. Then, when the term or subject was finished they would diligently erase their writing eventually resulting in books almost worn thin. So I really do think in general they would be well looked after.

My 3rd engagement should be a little more laid back — to the smaller gathering at this month’s SCLUG meeting.