OLPC Oceania

Aid donors key to bridging Pacific digital divide

2011-11-21T17:14:00.000-08:00

Radio New Zealand International broadcast the following feature this week on the OLPC Pacific programme:

And yesterday RNZI published the following story.

Aid donors key to bridging Pacific digital divide

The regional head of the world wide ’One Laptop Per Child’ programme, says key Pacific donor agencies must become involved and help Pacific countries to bridge the growing digital divide.

Michael Hutak says information communication technology is at a crossroads in the region and laptops are an incentive for children to engage with schools.

He says donors such as the New Zealand aid programme and AusAid need to realise ICT can radically change the education landscape for the better and he says their involvement would make the scheme sustainable.

“The amount of money going into the Pacific in terms of aid is huge. Personnally I’d like to see more of it directed not just to OLPC but to ICT and to digital media and to the digital revolution in particular, to ensure that Pacific kids don’t get left behind.”

Mr Hutak says the United States Government has shown a lot of leadership in the North Pacific, with strong support for the programme in the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, where the scheme is being evaluated as its becomes established.

Lessons from Niue feed into other Pacific efforts

2011-11-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

In terms of our regional initiative, One Laptop per Pacific Child, we have learnt much from our experience with Niue (which was our first donation to Pacific children), as we have from our other early Pacific pilots. For today, the primary lessons we take from Niue are that:

national education officials need to have goal-setting, deployment-planning and resource-mobilisation in place before any laptops arrive; this now seems very fundamental and is working in our favour in countries like the Marshall Islands, FSM, Vanuatu and Fiji.
a full-time national ICT-for-Education coordinator should be funded within government and be responsible for coordination and rollout of the OLPC program;
no matter how many politicians or parents in Small Island States publicly ask international donors to invest in ICT for basic education, none will be forthcoming without the active and real support of development partners.

The good news is that the countries which are just beginning their engagement with OLPC are taking these lessons on board and are benefiting from the experience of our early pilots.

Lessons learned from the OLPC Pacific pilot phase:
For an in depth analysis, see the independent evaluation of the OLPC pilot in Solomon Islands. Meanwhile some lessons learned from the OLPC Country Pilots in Niue, Solomon Islands,Papua New Guinea and Nauru include:

The OLPC Programme enhances, strengthens and aligns with regional and country education goals and plans, including countries’ global commitments to the MDGs and Education For All;
There is broad country-level demand and political and community support for the OLPC programme in the Pacific;
Small pilots, while encouraging, provide an insufficient evidence base for policy makers;
It is essential that Monitoring & Evaluation systems be integrated at the outset of any OLPC programme;
Broader-based regional technical assistance is needed to aid country capacity building;
A standing stock of XO laptops and hardware peripherals should be centrally maintained in the region to efficiently feed trial deployments in a timely and cost-efficient manner.
There is suppressed demand for internet connectivity in rural and remote parts of the Pacific, especially schools.
Criteria now exists for country and community readiness to undertake a trial program.

Niue education winds down OLPC due to funding shortfall

2011-11-21T16:07:00.000-08:00

The acting Director of Education in Niue, Lisimoni Togahai, has told Radio New Zealand International the OLPC program there is to be phased out:

The programme’s first two years went very well, with children’s computer literacy and understanding of issues such as climate change improving. She says unfortunately the scheme is expensive to run and the Education Department hasn’t got the budget to pay technicians to service the laptops.
“When the pilot ended and the school could not afford to pay for the high cost of maintaining the V-SAT that’s connected to the satellite for the internet access. So it’s just phased out.”

COMMENT: I have been unable to confirm any of these details, however as the Pacific rep for One Laptop per Child, it is distressing to read about a national program that "went very well" but is now unsustainable due reportedly to the cost of internet access.

First it means I failed to make people aware of the capacity and benefits of these technologies even when there is no internet access. It also means however that there is still 500 XOs in the tiny country and we could still make good use of the laptops we donated to Niue at the community level, even if the DoE is ending an ongoing program.

The second point raised in the article is the prohibitive cost of technicians to service the laptops. This may well be the case within Niue's budgeting priorities for education. However there is a very active developer network of volunteers on OLPC in the Pacific many of whom have already donated their services to help small island states like Niue. Indeed the initial deployment on Niue was assisted by volunteers from Australian and New Zealand. Such human resources are still available to Niue.

Finally, if this program really is being phased out because of the cost of internet access, then it raises an issue well beyond OLPC and goes to what do we really want for basic education in this "Pacific Century". Do we really want our schools to have internet access? If yes, are we prepared to pay for it and make it a priority? Or are the pricing regimes themselves unfair and inequitable? We understand there are excellent satellite broadband internet facilities on the island close to schools. It's unfortunate that a win-win arrangement could not be struck whereby access to such facilities could be shared to the lasting educational benefit of Niue's children.

I have never been to Niue but I have met some wonderful, dedicated educators from there at several Pacific conferences. They always expressed enthusiasm for technology in the classroom and indeed for the XO laptop as a device designed expressly for children. With 500 laptops still on the island, we have not given up on Niue. We are seeking a more detailed statement from Niue's education officials, and I will be especially interested to hear some experiences on the ground from the teachers and parents.

(Any further information we can get will be shared here on our blog)

- Michael Hutak, Regional Director, Oceania, One Laptop per Child Association

OLPC drives stunning gains in numeracy in remote Australia

2011-11-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

The registered charity One Laptop per Child Australia has enlisted powerful private sector support to reach largely Indigenous communities in remote or isolated locations. Its work is starting to produce results in Australia's new nationwide student testing program NAPLAN, which in turn are starting to attract attention among Australian policy-makers. This week the Australian Federal MP, Rob Oakeshott, told the Australian Parliament:

One Laptop per Child Australia delivers results in learning from the 5,000 students already engaged, showing impressive improvements in closing the gap generally and lifting access and participation rates in particular.
Most impressive of all is the first year in Doomadgee State School in remote, largely Indigenous North-West Queensland. Doomadgee has just produced stunning NAPLAN results, boosting their percentage of year 3 pupils at or above national minimum standards in numeracy from 31 per cent last year to a staggering 95 per cent in 2011. Principal Richard Barrie and his teachers are using plenty of clever and different engagement strategies, but one important tool in the toolbox is the early and strong use of technology via the One Laptop per Child Australia program. I am willing to back this program and I ask the Prime Minister and the government to do likewise... I strongly urge the government to consider this program.

In the Pacific around 8000 OLPC laptops are being used in 46 schools in 10 countries. The Pacific's major donor partners are currently considering several requests from countries to scale up and fully evaluate the program in the region. In August, the United States committed to partnering on OLPC with the north Pacific "Compact" countries, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, which both have embarked on OLPC programs.

Solar charged Haiti project points to OLPC's renewable future

2011-08-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

On her excellent blog, Laura Hosman documents an inspiring collaborative project in Haiti which installed solar power to charge 500 XO laptops in 8 days! (Plus a year of planning!):

We did it!! We successfully carried out our first solar powering deployment in Haiti, August 3-11! The EFACAP school in Lascahobas now has the capability to charge 500 OLPC XO laptops with a direct current (DC)-only solar system. According to our research and to OLPC, our installation has the distinction of being the world’s largest single-school solar laptop charging deployment!

Read the full post at ICT Views from the Field.

US rep at Kosrae OLPC handover: "We are your dedicated partner"

2011-08-14T05:39:00.000-07:00

In a speech made in July 2011 at the official handover ceremony at Tafunsak Elementary School on the remote island of Kosrae, Ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Peter A. Prahar, declared the United States "a dedicated partner" in the effort to roll out OLPC and improve the quality of education in Micronesia:

"Thank you for inviting me to participate in this event. I can assure you from this day forth, education – or at least educational opportunities – in Kosrae will be changed forever. I certainly don’t need to tell the students this is a momentous day. They are leaning forward towards the pile of computers that will be issued after we stop talking with the biggest smiles imaginable on their faces! But of course with every change, there is anxiety. With every change, there is a need for leaders to explain the rational and value of the change and how it might be best carried out. So let me address some short remarks to this big topic.

"First of all, a good education is rooted in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture. A good education requires a strong, coherent curriculum, dedicated and professional teachers, students motivated to learn, adequate resources and facilities, and parents and communities that support and value education. A good education requires enormous effort by everyone involved.

"Nothing about the One Laptop Per Child Program changes any of this.

"It is not a miracle cure for what ails you. Just like a fancy textbook, just putting this new tool in a student’s hands won’t guarantee he or she learns anything.

"Dedicated and professional teachers who understand the new tool will still need to see that it becomes part of a strong, coherent, and relevant curriculum. Principals will still need to make sure that the teachers are delivering well-structured, sequential programs in well-managed classes day in and day out – and that they understand this new tool. Students will still need to be motivated to exploit this new tool to advance their educations. Parents will still need to be their child’s first teacher and they still must be meaningfully involved in the formal education process in order to provide support, encouragement, interaction, and stimulus. Communities will still need to support and value the use of this new tool in getting a good education.

"The challenge for the students, teachers, principals, parents, and communities is enormous. The One Laptop Per Child is like a hammer in the hands of a person. The person has a choice. He can either use the hammer to break a building down or use it to build a new structure.
Used ineffectively, this new tool can be used to fritter away considerable amounts of time with Facebook, MyFace online games, and all the frivolous entertainment and other distractions available on the Internet. Used ineffectively, this new tool can become an impediment to learning and personal growth.

"But used effectively, this new tool can open new worlds of information and opportunity. It can link the newly empowered students of this small, island community with the entire global community. It can significantly level the playing field in the highly-competitive 21st century between students on this small, island community and those lucky enough to be able to physically attend the most demanding public and private schools in the world, anywhere in the world.

"But while I’ve pointed out the risks and rewards of this new tool, let me also say that you have no choice but to confront them. We have witnessed in the past ten years an unprecedented growth in information - all of it digital. Digital data now accounts for well in excess of 95 percent of all information. We simply cannot talk about education in the 21st century and somehow ignore 95 percent of the available information. We simply cannot talk about education in the 21st century and somehow decide we’re going to operate at 18th century speeds with 15th century paper and print technology and 19th century thinking.

"By the way - this is also the reason why everyone - not just students - should be online and connected. To not go online and be connected is to shut yourself off from 95 percent of what's happening.

"Some more free advice: Reach out and sell this program – this new tool - to all of your stakeholders.

"Sell it to the students. Tell them that on the Internet they can get the same information as someone in Honolulu, or Los Angeles, or New York, or London. They can share ideas with people anywhere in the world. They can take online courses and even get a college degree in many subjects without leaving Kosrae. I recently had dinner with a group of teachers in Chuuk who had completed bachelor degree courses on line through San Diego State University in California. And it’s not only college-level work: My 15-year-old niece stayed with my wife and me last summer. While living with us on Pohnpei, she was able to take online advanced high school courses from Johns Hopkins University – one of the best universities in the world.

"Sell it to the teachers: Here’s an opportunity to, at long last, get the most up-to-date learning materials into the hands of your students. Here’s an opportunity, at long last, to get learning material most appropriate to an individual student’s ability level and interest into his hands.

"Here’s an opportunity, at long last, for your students to access online courses, such as through the online Khan Academy, that will complement and reinforce classroom work. Here’s an opportunity, at long last, to see test scores soar and their scholarship eligibility potential increase. "Most importantly, here’s an opportunity, at long last, for the students to explore, to experiment, and to express themselves – in short, to acquire the skills they will need for a lifetime of learning.

"Sell it to the parents: Tell them that research has shown time and again that if used properly, this new tool can significantly increase their children’s knowledge of current and past events, their ability to read and write, their self-confidence, their entrepreneurial abilities, and their motivation to learn. By the way, educators may wish to consider workshops for the parents early in the rollout process to get them involved in a meaningful way in the learning to exploit the power of the Internet.

"Sell it to the community: Skill in exploiting the digital age is the key to Kosrae’s future. You could talk about the growth of the global marketplace for goods and services. You could point to the firm on Pohnpei that is, from an office next to the Embassy, selling millions and millions of dollars of insurance and other financial services to Japanese businesses – all from Pohnpei.

"In short, a well designed One Laptop Per Child program is more—much more—than a plan and a pile of computers. A well designed One Laptop Per Child program involves more than just the department employees and students within a school system. A well designed One Laptop Per Child program will, in fact, embody and win the solid commitment and active participation of all of the stakeholders in the Kosrae education system.

"And, as you roll out this new tool and take other steps to upgrade the quality of the education system here in Kosrae, I can assure you that the U.S. will be your dedicated partner in the effort."

Thank you.

---

UNESCO: "Education is a Human Right"

2011-08-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

A thoughtful video from UNESCO Bangkok: Children all over the world talk about the issues that affect them most.

In March 2011, World Education leaders met in Jomtien, Thailand, to renew their commitment to achieving Education for All by 2015. During the meeting, statements of high-Level Asian country representatives were gathered in this video to promote education as a human right.

Participants in the video are: Mr. A.K. Abdul Momen, Ambassador of Bangladesh to the United Nations; Mr. Phimmasone Luangkhamma, Minister of Education, Lao PDR; Ms Irina Bokova, Director General UNESCO; Mr. Joao Cancio Freitas, Minister of Education, Timor-Leste; Mr. Athar Tahir-Chowdhry, Secretary to Government, Ministry of Education, Pakistan; Ms Anshu Vaish, Secretary to Government, Ministry of Human Resource Development, India; Mr. Chinnaworn Boonyakiat, Minister of Education, Thailand; Mr. R. Agus Satorno, Deputy Minister for Education and Religion, Indonesia.

OLPC signs historic MOU with University of the South Pacific

2011-07-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

OLPC Foundation has donated fifteen XO laptops to the University of the South Pacific (USP) as part of an historic new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing the two partners to work together to further research and teacher training on 1-to-1 Computing in the Pacific.

Speaking Saturday at an official handover of the laptops at a ceremony in Suva, Fiji, OLPC Oceania director, Michael Hutak, welcomed the new partnership as a breakthrough for OLPC in the region.
"This is a great day for OLPC in the Pacific," said Mr Hutak. "USP is the leading teacher training institution in the region with campuses in all 10 Pacific countries where there are OLPC projects. Governments and ministries of education will now have access to the best minds in the region for their country to using the XO laptop in the classroom. And at the Japan Pacific ICT Centre, they will now have access to the best facilities too.

Under the terms of the agreement, USP has committed to:

House the laptops in a permanent lab at the new US$30 million Japan-Pacific ICT Centre at the Laucala Campus, Suva.
Ensure USP teaching students and staff have unfettered access to the XO's
Conduct teacher training on 1-to-1 approach in ICT in edcuation
Develop content for USP member countries
Provide technical advice on OLPC to USP members
Conduct research on educational impact and appropriate Pacific content

Mr Hutak, who negotiated the agreement with USP Vice-Chancellor Rajesh Chandra in February, said the MOU "removes a crucial roadblock to broad and effective regional technical assistance to Pacific countries on OLPC. Since 2008, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has been an invaluable partner on technical deployment, assisting countries to kickstart OLPC projects. Now, with USP, we have the pre-eminent academic partner joining us, putting its significant expertise and resources behind this region-wide effort. But most importantly, this MOU signals an deeper commitment from all players in the region to addressing gaps on ICT in basic education.

"This can only boost our collective efforts to bridge the digital divide -- an area where the Pacific is falling behind other regions."

Mr Hutak also praised the vision and generosity of the Government of Japan, which has designed, built and funded the new state-of-the-art facilities at the Japan Pacific ICT Centre, and which has now officially handed the facility over to USP to take forward. USP will make the OLPC lab at the centre available to trainee teachers at USP's School of Education. Leading research on educational impact and content development will be USP's Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE). A working group to include the relevant USP Faculties, the ICT Centre, SPC, and OLPC will now be formed to take forward the effort.

The MOU ceremony came at the conclusion of the first ever South Pacific ICT Expo and Symposium jointly hosted by USP, the Government of Fiji and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). View OLPC Oceania's presentation at SPICTEX here:

OLPC Oceania at USP - 21 jul11

View more presentations from One Laptop per Pacific Child.

Spotlight on Special Ed as US backs OLPC in Micronesia

2011-07-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

Micronesia's OLPC journey is off and running with the Official Handover ceremony of 810 XO laptops on the remote island State of Kosrae. The program comes after teacher training workshops funded by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, OLPC's deployment partner in Oceania.
Kosrae's program is funded by the United States, a significant and most welcome commitment from the largest aid donor in the northern Pacific, and a move that will ensure sustainability in a country heavily dependent on external aid.
The Marianas Variety reported comments by US Ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia, Peter A. Prahar at the handover ceremony on July 7. Noting "the importance of embracing the digita l age," Ambassador Prahar challenged Kosrae's parents and teachers to use the program to “embody and win the solid commitment and active participation of all of the stakeholders in the Kosrae education system.” Proof of that commitment could be seen immediately in Kosrae's inclusion of its special education students in the launch activities.

Kosrean Special Education students show off their new XO laptops .

Social inclusion is at the heart of the OLPC approach in Oceania, and the provision of laptops to every child is a signal from tiny Kosrae -- population 6,600 -- that neither disability nor the vastness of the Pacific need be barriers to a better quality education for all our children.

Marshall Is. leads Pacific on ICT for kids

2011-06-13T05:19:00.001-07:00

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) kicks off its OLPC program this week with consultations between Ministry of Education (MOE) officials and representatives from the One Laptop per Child Foundation and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Following the installation in 2010 of high-speed internet via fibre-optic cable, the remote Micronesian nation is rolling out OLPC as part of the MOE's wider "Comprehensive Technology Plan" for education.

OLPC is a key plank in the MOE's broader vision that will see RMI "schools becoming an environment where all students and staff have ready access to the best available range of current technology, software tools, and applications." The MOE is planning an innovative rollout of OLPC that will incorporate a teachers' professional development program to ensure teachers are well prepared when the laptops come to their communities.

"The Marshall Islands' investment in technology infrastructure is being matched by investment in its people too," said OLPC's Oceania director Michael Hutak, "With the rollout of OLPC in schools taking shape with meticulous planning, RMI is ensuring the next generation will not be left behind. "

Read the RMI OLPC Project document here.
Read the RMI Comprehensive Technology Plan here:

The Comprehensive Technology Plan is an inspiring and visionary document, to quote:

"As the RMI moves toward being a globally connected and information based society, the MOE has a responsibility to prepare the Republic’s young people with the 21st Century skills necessary to be successful contributing members of society locally, within the Pacific region, and globally. These include problem solving, and the ability to participate in a global technology-based community as well as cultural competencies, language skills, mathematics, science, etc. The MOE also strives to improve its own effectiveness by taking advantage of the best available communications and technology tools.

"ICT has changed the way people and cultures view and participate in the world –locally, regionally, and globally. Computers and Internet access, as well as a variety of other technologies, have very rapidly led to new sets of skills necessary to function in the work place and required for continuing education beyond high school. These developments also necessitate and provide opportunities to consider new ways of teaching, learning, and understanding schooling."

"The MOE envisions ... schools will be places where students are engaged in a challenging curriculum and are comfortable using technology to contribute to and enrich their learning. A community where teachers have the knowledge and skills to integrate technology into a challenging and interdisciplinary curriculum which addresses students' specific needs, developmental levels and learning styles, and use technology to support learning across the curriculum. All administrators, teachers, and other Ministry staff will use technology on a regular basis to effectively help students attain high standards and prepare for tomorrow's world of work."

OLPC Oceania at UN Asia Pacific Forum, Bangkok

2011-05-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

APAC Regional Forum on ICT Applications, Bangkok, hosted by ITU, UNESCAP and the Government of Thailand.

View more presentations from One Laptop per Pacific Child

"Let me add something raw and home based..."

2011-05-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

In this recent post to a mailing list for Pacific educators, Brian Bird, the principal at Patukae College in the Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands, makes a passionate grass roots case for OLPC :

"Let me add something raw and home based to my previous article ... yesterday. Patukae CHS is one of the OLPC projects project in the Solomon. While it is true that technology does not in itself responsible for driving change, it is a tool that can be used to drive change in learning and in commitment to learn. In for instance which is one of the pilots in the OLPC project we accepted OLPCs as tools and we invested efforts to make them work.

"We ran training programme for teachers, and students, and we provided back-up support to both teachers and students and the results have been quite exciting. Student literacy rates have gone up. The overall academic performance of students with laptops had increased and we have seen increase in school pass rates since the introduction of laptops. The attitudes of students with laptops have changed; they are more active in their learning objectives. Parents have also becoming more engaged in their children’s learning and some of them have even improved their own English literacy through the use of the reading and pronunciation tools in the OLPC.
"We at Patukae College have definitely found the OLPC very useful. They have pushed the boundaries of Education, they have given teachers more option and ideas, and it has enabled students to learn in a different way. To make it work we took its vision, drive and commitment, and a belief that used properly, this tool can make the difference our rural schools are looking for. It is very easy to knock technology on the head, very easy to question its legitimacy, its usefulness, but let us not forget that we who can communicate are the lucky ones, we have the opportunity to have computers, they have helped us. For the first time similar opportunities are given to children in the rural areas at Patukae and they are now realising the same opportunities that some of us have been taking for granted.
"In elevating this ICT innovation to another height, Patukae CHS in collaboration with most of the leading Primary Schools in Marovo Lagoon started last year and currently is through an UNESCO project launched a Marovo Wiki educator program that can globally accessed. Teachers from these schools were brought together to learn wiki skills to enable them use the skills in devising lessons both in English and in Marovo vernacular with the aim that most of these lessons should be uploaded to the Marovo Wiki/Wiki educator online.

"This is ICT in action right in the classroom and our teachers and students used the OLPC to make this work. With the introduction of OLPC into its classroom, Patukae see opportunities through the challenges and decided to move on realising the potential ICT can bring to its populace. In that view point I would call on for more support towards ICT expansion in Schools. Let us not criticise the technology, nor those that are trying to help. But rather ask the question, what can I do to add value to this initiative. At Patukae we take the view that we need to empower our teachers so that they in turn can empower our students. There is no point always looking at the empty portion of the ‘half-filled bucket of water’; rather we should be asking the question, how can I fill the rest of this bucket of water so that can achieve its full potential?
"I support the OLPC programme and what it sets out to do. I have seen the benefits it has provided to those that have received it. It is my hope countries can put in place mechanisms that will empower teachers to empower children but also processes that will objectively evaluate the impact of this technology in the education of our children into the future because the outcome of such evaluations will add more weight to the effectiveness of OLPCs as an effective learning and communication tool..."

Find out more about OLPC in Marovo:

Teachers using technology to humanise the classroom

2011-04-28T18:08:00.000-07:00

Founder Salman Khan talks to Bill Gates at TED 2011 about the concepts behind the Khan Academy, an online service providing "self-paced learning" that frees up teachers to focus on providing individual attention to meet individual student needs and encourages "peer-to-peer" teaching among students themselves. Khan has uploaded more than 2100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history. Khan is American but his videos have become a global phenomenon. Do Pacific educators see any value in these approaches?

Essay: One Laptop per Pacific Child

2011-04-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

OLPC Cook Islands pilot.

As the world grows smaller, our common humanity will reveal itself.

-- US President Barack Obama, Inauguration Speech, 2009

If they are lucky enough to attend school, today’s six year olds will graduate in twelve years, in 2023. The pace of technological change is so astounding, how can we know what 2023 will even look like?

Consider for a second life twelve years ago. In 1998, internet access in global terms was slow, narrow and novel. Today it is fast, broad and approaching potential ubiquity. In education, how do we prepare children for a world we cannot predict? What should education be when information is just a few clicks away?

Here are some things we do know about the school leavers of 2023:

They will be competing for jobs on a global market.
They will be working with as yet undeveloped computational devices, many in still to be imagined industries, in digitally connected communities.
They will need twentyfirst century skills to succeed: information literacy; critical thinking; and a capacity to innovate and create.

Addressing these issues, One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a global, non-profit organisation dedicated to creating educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children. OLPC views education as the key to overcoming poverty, and as the creator, manufacturer and distributor of the ground-breaking XO laptop, it works with governments and educators to supply rugged, low-cost, low-powered, connected laptops, loaded with educational software, to children in developing countries.

The brainchild of researchers and educators of MIT’s renowned Media Lab, designed especially for children aged six to twelve years old, the XO is a special object. Unveiled at Davos in 2005 as the ‘hundred dollar laptop’, it became an instant icon of twentyfirst century design, a landmark in computer innovation, the epitome of disruptive economics, and a symbol of hope to millions of children across the developing world.

The XO has been in the vanguard of a global revolution in bringing information and communications technology into the classroom (of which Australia’s own ‘Digital Education Revolution’ is a largely unacknowledged lamplighter). OLPC is designed to be a national program mainstreamed into the education system and more than two million XOs have been distributed in over forty countries, including Uruguay, Peru, Pakistan, Palestine, Nepal, Haiti, Rwanda, Afghanistan and remote Australia.

OLPC also adopts the ‘one-to-one’ approach whereby every child is given their own device to keep, take home and share with their families and community. Giving every child a device is analogous to an inoculation against exclusion from the ‘digital divide’– that gap in equitable access to the internet and the digital domain between rich and poor countries, and between the rich and the poor within all countries. Progress on bridging these gaps is now widely accepted as a key indicator of human development.

Now the XO has come to the Pacific. In 2011 there are more than 6,000 children with XO laptops in forty-one schools in ten Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

what should education be when information is just a few clicks away?

One Laptop per Pacific Child is a regional initiative to provide an XO loaded with appropriate Pacific content and open source software to every Pacific child in basic education. We are seeking to reach more than 700,000 children in schools across twenty-two Pacific island nations, a goal that acknowledges just as many children attend no formal schooling whatsoever. A coalition of partners called OLPC Oceania is linking individual country programmes to region-wide technical assistance.

In January, the tiny Micronesian state of Kosrae took possession of 800 XO laptops, enough to cover more than half the island’s senior primary school population in years 4, 5 and 6. A key task Kosrae’s educators have set their students is to adapt the operating system of the computer into the native Kosrean language, in time for next year when grades 1, 2 and 3 will get their laptops. This will have a positive impact on this cohort’s lifelong economic prospects, but we won’t start to see the results until the 2020s when many will embark on twentyfirst century careers that their parents would never have imagined possible.

Similar stories are being written all over the Pacific, and while heartwarming at first blush, these are but baby steps for the region, dwarfed in scale by deployments elsewhere in the world, such as Latin America, where in Peru alone there are some 870,000 laptops in use.

Why has the Pacific take-up been slow? It hasn’t been for lack of political will. In 2007, the leaders of twenty-two Pacific nations publicly resolved to test the XO in their primary schools and education systems. National leaders of ten Pacific countries have made explicit formal requests for support from donors to support their government to introduce OLPC. As OLPC’s Pacific representative, I have been petitioning the donors to listen.

an unskilled worker in the Solomons takes a week to earn what an unskilled Australian earns in an hour

If country demand is strong, it’s because the needs are enormous. In 2011 the people of the Pacific face challenges arising from poverty, climate change, globalisation, natural and human-made disasters, rapid population growth and increasing rates of urbanisation. These forces are impacting the natural environment, traditional cultures and practices, food security, local markets and livelihoods, communities and families.

In wealthy, developed Australia we forget that six of the world’s fifty designated ‘Least Developed Countries’ are right in our ‘backyard’: Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

An unskilled worker in the Solomons takes a week to earn what an unskilled Australian earns in an hour. In Kiribati, a child’s first birthday is the most celebrated milestone, since so many fail to meet it. Many small Pacific economies face long-term if not permanent dependence on foreign aid and remittances from expatriate diasporas.

If donors fail to equip Pacific children to meet these challenges we put them at an even greater disadvantage. We will be handing the baton to a new generation less able to support and raise their own families, and more vulnerable to social disintegration. As adults, they will risk being left behind, a destructive legacy they will pass on to their own children.

However Barack Obama’s quote reminds us that there are options. We can choose to help the children of the Pacific secure their future. We can give a child a laptop today which can extend her education, broaden her knowledge, expand her skills, and unlock her creative potential. Here in 2011, at a time when Australia rolls out a Digital Education Revolution, the question is not whether laptops for Pacific children are appropriate, but whether we are going to be early or late in supplying them.

-- Michael Hutak is Director, Oceania, One Laptop per Child Foundation.

First published by St James Ethics Centre.

Young iKiribati plug into Facebook to raise climate change alarm

2011-03-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

UNICEF Pacific reports young iKiribati are using Facebook to tell the world they are experiencing a disaster that is slowly and steadily eroding their culture and home. Kiribati President Anote Tong calls again on the international community to take action on climate change.

OLPC calls for Australia’s Aid Program to Bridge the Digital Divide

2011-02-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

The OLPC Foundation has made a submission to the Australian Government's Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness.
While other agencies scale up their commitment to innovation in aid delivery, we note in our submission that Australia's contribution to global efforts on bridging the digital divide has been insufficient. We make the case that:

"From the perspectives of humanitarian aid, human development and human rights, contributing to global efforts to bridge the digital divide needs to become an urgent and central priority of Australia’s aid program."

We argue that Australia’s aid agency needs to develop a substantial, coherent, and overarching digital strategy with respect to the delivery of its programs and the conduct of its activities.

Read our submission to the review here, or download the document here:
http://www.aidreview.gov.au/publications/sub-onelaptop.pdf

BACKGROUND: Australia is the major bilateral donor to developing Pacific countries and under the leadership of Mr Rudd, first as Prime Minister now as Foreign Minister, it has shifted its core sectoral focus in recent years to education. This shift culminated in last year's commitment to spend US$5 billion on education in developing countries as Australia's key contribution to meeting the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. This investment in the world's children is the centrepiece of Australia's bipartisan MDG commitment to double its aid program to 0.5 per cent of GDP by 2015. It is in this context of "doubling aid" that Mr Rudd announced the review of Australia's aid and development program, the first since 1996.

FAO feeds young minds on responsible aquaculture

2011-01-19T05:30:00.000-08:00

Pacific educators looking for appropriate content for OLPC Oceania XS school servers should investigate the exhaustive array of online resources collected by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for its Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger initiative. FAO, the UN agency leading international efforts to defeat hunger, has produced a rich online educational resource on all aspects fisheries and aquaculture. It includes a learning module of special relevance to our region, ‘Wonders of the Oceans’, which aims to:

"...teach 8-12 year olds the importance of conserving our aquatic resources through responsible fisheries and aquaculture. We have selected six major themes to learn and explore the world’s oceans: the richness of the oceans; creatures inhabiting the oceans; food from the oceans; people who depend on the oceans; bad and good practices and their impacts on the oceans; the importance of acting responsibly regarding the oceans.
Each theme includes lessons containing the core learning content and curious facts with associated activities (both group and individual) and additional information. There are a total of 17 lessons.
At the beginning of each lesson, students will follow the amazing journey of Captain Costa, the experienced captain of a fishing boat, and Lisa, his 12-year-old granddaughter. Together they will discover the wonders of the oceans and students will learn through these experiences.
To set the stage, each lesson is prefaced by a short exchange – either through a conversation or a postcard – involving Captain Costa and Lisa.

In 1995 the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries was adopted by 191 countries at the FAO Conference. This signalled a major step in promoting the move towards acting responsibly in regards to all aquatic resources and their ecosystems. Through the learning achieved in these lessons, FAO hope that students the world over will understand the importance of the Code.

Next XO 'armed' to deliver even lower power consumption benefits

2011-01-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Low power consumption is an essential requirement for developing countries introducing technology into education. This great interview with OLPC Chief Technology Officer Edward J. McNierney introduces the ARM version of OLPC's XO Laptop, the XO 1.75, which will make possible a sub-2 Watt device for the first time:

"OLPC created the Netbook market, now they will push the PC/Laptop industry towards ARM support for lower power consumption and lower prices through increased industry competition and optimized SoC designs. The $100 Laptop is nearer"

Solomons' Marovo pioneers a new "Pacific way"

2010-12-20T16:42:00.000-08:00

A decade ago, the Solomon Islands was still a nation wracked by civil war. Today, inspiring stories of empowerment and rejuvenation are to be found, such as that among the communities of the country's remote Marovo Lagoon in Western Province. December 2010 marks 10 years since the people of this beautiful and fragile environment accessed email for the first time, via the ground-breaking People First Network (PFNet).
Today, Marovo is buzzing with innovative ICT-for-education projects which are motivating students, connecting people, empowering communities and pointing to the possibilities of a new "Pacific way" on education. Grass roots communities are driving these projects with support and assistance from their national government and its partners in development in the bilateral, regional, non-profit and private sectors.

Primary schools in the villages of Patukae, Batuna and Sombiro have been using XO laptops donated by the OLPC Foundation since 2008.
Distance Learning Centres, funded by the EU, have connected rural community high schools like Patukae since 2006.
The community can access VSAT broadband in the area via the Pacific Rural Internet Connectivity System (PACRICS), seed-funded by AusAID, ongoing funding from the Asian Development Bank and implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, supported by the UEPI Resort and Marovo Sustainable Timbers.
Patukae High School was in September 2010 the recipient of donated computers and personal training from the Scots College, Sydney, one of Australia's oldest schools.
The Marovo Reef and Rainforest Wiki Project see previous post or find out more here.

Solomons kids use XO and Wiki to bring encyclopedia to life

2010-12-20T16:20:00.000-08:00

In 2005, almost twenty years after his first visit to the Solomon Islands, Norwegian Professor Edvard Hviding published an unprecedented work: Reef and Rainforest: An Environmental Encyclopedia of the Marovo Lagoon. First arriving in Marovo in 1986, Hviding is a dedicated pedagogue, and ensured his work was not only available in the indigenous Marovo language, but that it aligned with the national curriculum, and came complete with teachers' guides and lesson plans.
Now the OLPC XO laptops in the region are being used to bring a new dimension to this incredible resource. Solomon Islands Government are working with UNESCO to enable the kids of Marovo to use their XO laptops to access and update the encyclopedia via a wiki platform.
The project is unique in its approach in the Pacific: making an exceptional resource not just available to remote rural schools but open to their contributions via the XO and the Wiki, accessed through VSAT internet access.
"The project demonstrates how technology can be used in poor rural communities to foster and protect indigenous knowledge as a living and dynamic resource owned by the communities themselves," says ICT for education expert, David Leeming, who is managing the project. Mr Leeming cites the project as an effective use of Open Educational Resources (OER), an approach which he says is suitable for boosting the learning systems of poor and disadvantaged communities right across the Pacific. "This can work wherever there is a demand for quality education that reinforces vernacular languages and local content."

Find out more about the Marovo Reef and Rainforest Wiki Project here.

OLPC Samoa field mission report

2010-11-14T06:10:00.000-08:00

In May 2010, 75 XO-1.0 laptops were distributed to children and teachers in two primary schools in Samoa - 48 laptops went to Laumoli Primary School children and 27 laptops went to Paia Primary. Both schools are located on Savaii Island. In August, Tom Parker and Tabitha Roder, who are active in members of OLPC New Zealand and the global OLPC community, mounted a self-funded mission to Samoa to visit the two schools to provide technical assistance and assess the deployments. As part of their work at the schools, they used a grant by the Australian Youth Trust of the Commonwealth Day Committee of NSW to buy and install servers and wireless access points. The mission was supported by Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the Samoan Ministry of Education Sports and Culture (MESC). Tom and Tabitha's report is a clear and comprehensive assessment and offers some important recommendations for Samoa to consider, especially with regards to design and integration in the curriculum. See the full report below.

Open publication - Free publishing - More samoa

New global survey of OLPC evaluations

2010-11-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

OLPC learns and grows from every distribution, small or large, and actively seeks out feedback, documentation and analysis. OLPC partners and communities are critical contributors in this feedback loop and likewise are usually interested in how monitoring and evaluation studies from different countries can offer insight into successes and challenges of one laptop per child programs. The learning team at OLPC's Cambridge MA headquarters has compiled the first version of an assessment report of the existing M&E literature to compare different projects, generate discussion, and gain inspiration.

Open publication - Free publishing

Encouraging impressions from the field in Solomons pilots.

2010-10-28T23:40:00.000-07:00

Laura Hosman is an American researcher who has been travelling through Melanesia visiting our OLPC pilot projects in PNG and the Solomons. She has been keeping a fascinating diary of her impressions at her blog, ICT4D Views from the Field.
Her latest entry covers her visit to the village of Batuna, in Marovo lagoon, Solomon Islands.

"It was a special day in Batuna, because the sixth graders were taking the national exam. This meant that classes were not as they would be on a normal school day, so the teachers gathered the students who had their laptops, invited them in to the same room, and had them demonstrate the various programs they could use on the laptops. And there were many that I had not seen before!

"I asked each student what their favorite program was and I received numerous answers: Paint, Chat, Memory, Writing, Photo/Camera, Connect, Maze, and Slideshow (with Paint receiving the most votes by far). The students seemed very at ease with working together over the computers–in other words, they could chat, or play a game with another student sitting across the room. I hadn’t witnessed this activity, certainly to this extent, before."

Ms Hosman credits the permanent presence of a dedicated IT support expert as crucial to the encouraging scene at Batuna:

"...the presence of Elnah Tati, who, in addition to teaching business computing at the college, is the IT expert at the college and for the OLPC program. She therefore also helps the primary school with teacher training and creative ideas for using the XOs. The programs and software being used on the XOs at Batuna were more diverse and advanced than I had witnessed elsewhere up to that point—which I believe was a reflection of Elnah’s involvement."

New guidance on the XS Server and starting an OLPC Oceania project

2010-10-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

David Leeming, of Leeming International Consulting, has provided frontline technical assistance on OLPC in the Pacific since 2007 and has been involved in helping communities with first deployments of OLPC in the Solomons, PNG, Nauru, Tuvalu and Kosrae in FSM. David has produced two new documents for OLPC Oceania Technical Working Group which we've now shared for the benefit of education officers, teachers and community participants in OLPC Oceania Country Trials:

OLPC Oceania - Workbook for Education Officers Guidance to accompany the two‐day workshop
for education officers and teachers participating in an OLPC Oceania Country Trial. Commissioned by the International Telecommunications Union.
OLPC Oceania - Guide to installing the Pacific XS School Server Technical guidance for schools and communities on installing the XS school server along with content resources collected by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Visit our document repository at www.box.net/keydox to download these and other key documents.

Vanuatu's PM embraces digital future with OLPC

2010-09-16T02:38:00.000-07:00

The Prime Minister of Vanuatu, the Honourable Nipake Edward Natapei, has committed his nation to a digital future, announcing that the young country will "establish a Country Programme of the innovative 'XO laptop' in schools in remote villages, starting from next year." He said the XO "will be used to improve schools' performance on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, and also teach children new skills such as 'information literacy'."
A former Minister for Infrastructure, Prime Minister Napatei made his announcement on OLPC after opening the PACINET 2010 conference, which has brought ICT experts from all over the region to the Port Vila to discuss the "next generation internet".
Vanuatu has shown its appetite for technology and innovation in recent years with a rapid uptake in mobile telephony and the recent rollout of a national network to deliver e-government across the Melanesian archipelago of 82 mainly volcanic islands.
Formerly known as the New Hebrides, the republic only gained independence from its former joint colonial administrators, Britain and France, in 1980, a unique history which has seen the country adopt three official national languages: English, French and the creole Bislama.
On OLPC, the Office of Prime Minister today issued the following media release:

The Honourable Prime Minister, Nipake Edward Natapei, today announced a new partnership to bring the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative to the children of Vanuatu.

The Prime Minister said the Republic of Vanuatu will partner with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the One Laptop per Child Foundation to establish a Country Programme of the innovative "XO laptop" in schools in remote villages, starting from next year.

OLPC, which is mandated by Pacific Forum Leaders in the Pacific Plan, will be used to improve schools' performance on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, and also teach children new skills such as "information literacy". The eye-catching green and white XO laptops are rugged, low-cost, low-powered, and come loaded with safe, appropriate software designed for young children aged 6 to 12 years.

The laptops can be adapted to any language: English, French and Bislama. One Laptop per Child Foundation is a global non-profit organization, dedicated to creating educational opportunities for the world's poorest children. Since 2007 it has distributed more than 2 million laptops in over 31 countries including Uruguay, Peru, Pakistan, Nepal, Rwanda and Afghanistan.

Working with OLPC, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community has since 2008 helped established projects in eight Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Tonga. The governments of seven more Pacific countries have OLPC programs in development: Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, and Palau.

The PM said in Vanuatu this project would also contribute to bridging the digital divide in the country, boosting access for people in remote villages to education, health, information and other government services. The announcement came one day after he launched the PACINET 2010 conference, which has brought IT experts from all over the region to the Port Vila campus of USP to discuss the "next generation internet".

The PM was joined by Mr Michael Hutak, the Oceania Director of the One Laptop per Child Foundation, who will address PACINET tomorrow. Mr Hutak said: "OLPC Foundation is proud to join with the Prime Minister and the people of Vanuatu in this effort to arm our children with the knowledge and skills they will need to inherit the world we are leaving to them."

The PM said a proposal outlining an initial trial phase of between 1000 and 2000 laptops would be jointly submitted by the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Education to the Council of Ministers for approval and seeking a resolution to confirm the partnership agreement.

With work now underway on the new e-government network to link up the provinces and a revision of the education curriculum being planned, the PM said the time is right to introduce OLPC in schools, adding that this is the start of a long-term investment in our most precious natural resource: our children. Recent studies from the World Bank show access to the internet can significantly boost economic activity, adding points to economic growth.

The PM said he would be working with Vanuatu's development partners to finance the project which would cost between USD250,000 and USD500,000, depending on the scope of year long trial. To design and implement the project, the government would draw on the expertise and technical assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community through its leadership of the regional initiative One Laptop per Pacific Child.

In the first phase the project would focus on remote islands coupling with another SPC program PacRICS, which provides satellite internet access to Pacific outer islands and other inaccessible locations.

ENDS

Download the full press statement here:

http://www.box.net/shared/0kxc41h5iv

Australian charity puts XO into the remotest communities

2010-09-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Grade 2 student Jeremiah Johnson at Doomadgee State School with his
new laptop computer. Picture: Brian Cassey Source: The Australian

OLPC Australia Ltd has broadened its reach to Queensland with the annoucnment it has brought the XO now to the remote Doomadgee State School, in far northwest Queensland -- more than 2200 kilometres northwest of Brisbane, and some 500km from the nearest major town, Mount Isa.
The charity has distributed some 4000 laptops in Australia, paid for through private donations and with the support of major corporations such as News Corporation, which has provided much media coverage free of charge to the organisation. In a front page article in The Australian today, editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell, said the newspaper was proud of its long-standing support:

"Education is one of the most important things you can give a child," he said. "This program helps give kids in remote parts . . . educational opportunities they've never had before - opportunities we take for granted in the cities."

The remoteness of the Australian deployments underlines the facility of OLPC to reach the most inaccessible communities, a point not lost on Pacific educators where about 6000 XOs are now in use.
More than a dozen Pacific countries requesting assistance on OLPC from major donors such as AusAID will be hoping the re-election of the Gillard Labor Government in Australia bodes well for their aspirations to improve the opportunities of their children to bridge the digital divide and join the global revolution in electronic delivery of education.
The Australian government in May granted OLPC Australia Ltd charity tax deductible status, a move estimated to generate in excess of AUD$2 million in subsidies to the Australian program.

Uruguay's lessons: It CAN be done, it IS worth it...

2010-09-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

While the Pacific focuses on trials and small projects, some governments outside the region have taken the key step of embracing OLPC as a national program.
This inspiring and informative talk from Miguel Brechner Frey, the director of Uruguay's Plan Ceibal, outlines the scope and challenges of delivering a laptop to more than 380,000 children in that country. The first lesson: it CAN be done. The second lesson: it WAS worth it... Listen!

Kiribati puts XO into education plan

2010-07-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Republic of Kiribati, a small island state of about 110,000 people, spread across a vast marine territory in the Pacific the size of the Unites States, has joined the Pacific wave for One Laptop per Child.
"We believe OLPC has great potential to improve the quality of our basic education," said Kiribati Minister for Education, Hon. Toakai Koririntetaake, this week in a prepared statement. The Minister said Kiribati would deploy OLPC "to improve our national standards in literacy and numeracy, to teach our children new lifelong skills, and boost the long-term economic development of our country."
Kiribati, one of the world's poorest nations, faces severe challenges in population growth, health and sanitation, and climate change, and has embraced OLPC as a catalyst to breaking the cycle of poverty.
The MOE has appointed a senior level OLPC Country Working Committee to oversee the distribution of 2000 XO laptops in primary schools in 2011 and to address key issues such as curriculum integration and teacher training. Kiribati will measure OLPC's impact on basic literacy and numeracy, in line with the AusAID-funded Kiribati Education Improvement Plan (KEIP). In Kiribati, at the class four level in English literacy-43% of children show little or no evidence of achieving the learning outcomes appropriate for that level. For indigenous Kiribati literacy and numeracy, the figures are 25% and 53%, respectively.
Read the full Ministerial Statement here.

Rudd backs OLPC with $2.4m tax break

2010-05-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced backing for OLPC through the provision of tax deductible status to One Laptop per Child Australia Ltd, the charity which has deployed 1500 laptops to remote outback communities. The listing is expected to attract AUD$2.4 million in donations to the charity. Said the PM in a statement:

The Australian Government is pleased to be able to extend deductible gift recipient status to One Laptop per Child. Through this listing, the organisation will be in a significantly better position to attract private and corporate donors to raise critical funds to meet its 20,000 laptop objective.
The decision will be effective from today and run until 30 June 2012. All donations of $2 or more will be fully tax deductible during that period and all taxpayers who make a donation should ensure they receive a receipt.
The listing of One Laptop per Child is expected to cost $2.4 million.
The work of One Laptop per Child closely complements the Government's six year $2.2 billion investment in the Digital Education Revolution (DER)."

If there is no sharing, there is no education....

2010-05-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

A compelling talk on openness in education by Dr. David Wiley, Associate Professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University, delivered at TEDxNYC 2010, April, New York.

Picture painted by PNG G3 student on launch day at Rumginae

2010-05-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

We received this image from OLPC technical deployment expert, David Leeming, who is working with kids in the North Fly River area in PNG's Western Province, part of 1000 XO laptops being deployed by the Papua New Guinea Sustainable Development Program. The image was produced on the XO by a child who had had his new laptop for only 4 hours.

"All his mates on that table were also painting similar standard," wrote Leeming. "Interesting how the perception of the mountains is like that. Blue mountains above the clouds. A classical artist couldn’t have done it better..."

New Solomons study puts hard evidence of OLPC's positive impact

2010-04-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

An independent evaluation commissioned by the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) of the OLPC pilot projects in the remote Western Province has boosted calls to expand the program in the country and across the Pacific.
The study, conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research(ACER), evaluated OLPC deployments in three village schools in the Marovo Lagoon and found the impact on students, teachers, parents and communities undeniably positive.
"OLPC must and should be given the opportunity to expand in Solomon Islands," the report quotes a school principal involved in the pilots. "It must be realised appreciated and embraced."
For students, the big pluses were access to new knowledge and the opportunity to learn independently. Children said the program helped them master the basics of reading, writing and mathematics but also opened up the world by enhancing learning through discovery: "To help me to learn many things I did not know before" as one Grade 5 boy told the researchers.
The SI government has welcomed the report, citing "clear potential benefits for schools and based on the positive outcome of the report the Ministry of Education is now focusing on the way forward".
The report was commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD), which will now investigate options for scaling up the program in the country. The study fills a gap in local evidence on the global OLPC program and offers a crucial local perspective. OLPC projects are now up and running in 7 Pacific countries, with 8 more countries seeking support from international donors to introduce OLPC in their education systems. The SIG/ACER study now provides valuable evidence for Pacific countries to support their policy and program plans.
ACER undertook the evaluation in September 2009, some 15 months after students first received their “XO” laptops. The key requirement was to identify the impact of the OLPC program, both positive and negative, on the three Marovo schools. ACER conducted interviews with teachers, students, parents and community members, and surveyed MEHRD officials and other key stakeholders. ACER identified the improvements and published recommendations in the report. (ACER is the publisher of the OLPC Global Literature Review, the only comprehensive account of evaluation of the XO.)
The Solomon Islands is one of only a few countries to develop its own Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the program. ACER’s evaluation focused on the impact of the OLPC program on teaching and learning, among other objectives stated in the framework. Three trial projects began in July 2008. The schools in the trial were Sombiro, Batuna and Patukae Primary Schools in Marovo, Western Province.
The evaluation indicated that the impact of the OLPC program has been very positive and while there have been some technical challenges, the new technology has been enthusiastically embraced by the schools and communities. The evaluation was carried out over two months in late 2009. Local interviewers were trained in workshop sessions as part of the evaluation. Interviews were conducted with students, parents, teachers and community members. Consistent interview questions, tailored for each group, were used.
The report’s highlights include:

evidence to date indicates that the trial has largely met the objectives of the program as outlined in the MEHRD framework.

Parents, students, teachers and community members see major benefits in the program.

The provision of the laptops has been greatly appreciated as a step in improving learning for students. This appreciation was repeatedly expressed in interviews.

The report recommended that the program will be strengthened by:

the provision of more technical and preferably local support;

further training for teachers, and also for parents and community members

an ongoing program of training

continued attention to monitoring and evaluation.

The OLPC program provides rugged, low-cost, connected laptops to children in developing countries. The program seeks to encourage learning by engaging students in a range of educational software undertaken both individually and with eachother via the XO laptop. The software, called “activities” in the OLPC system, come pre-installed on the laptop for immediate use, or they can be adapted to suit local needs, or supplemented by wholly local content.
OLPC Oceania is one of three programs carried out under the Pacific Plan Digital Strategy with the support of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The Solomon Islands trial was also undertaken with the technical and resource support of the region-wide initiative, “One Laptop per Pacific Child”.
Related Links:

Download the SIG/ACER report here.

Read a news item from the Solomon Star newspaper here.

More on the OLPC programme in Solomon Islands here.

Access the Solomon Is government's Measurable Objectives and evaluation framework.

Private sector backs OLPC in remote Australia

2010-04-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

Australia's private sector is backing OLPC in the remote outback:

"Now, an ambitious program that's caught the philanthropic attentions of some of Australia's biggest companies. Called One Laptop Per Child, it aims to deliver a computer loaded with educational programs to every child aged between four and fifteen years in hundreds of remote and outer-regional communities around the country. The program is the local extension of a global effort to give laptops to children in developing countries. And yesterday in a remote northern territory town it moved one small step closer to achieving its Australian goals..."

Read the full transcript and access an inspiring video here.

Commonwealth backs OLPC Oceania with support for Samoa reconstruction

2010-03-10T06:46:00.000-08:00

OLPC Oceania has won high level backing on the eve of the launch of One Laptop per Child in Samoa next month. At a reception at Parliament House, Sydney, to mark Commonwealth Day, Chairman of the Australian Youth Trust, Sir Ian Turbott AO, announced a donation of AUD$5000 to kickstart the OLPC program in Samoa next month. He said the grant would "send at signal of support to the Samoan people as they rebuild their country in the aftermath of the September 2009 tsunami disaster."
The Award was presented by AYT Patron, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales, to OLPC's regional director, Michael Hutak, and the Samoan High Commissioner to Australia, H.E Lemalu Samau Tate Simi. The funds will be disbursed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, which will buy school servers and other peripheral equipment to support the XO deployment in April in two schools in the villages of Paia and Laumoli on Samoa's island of Savai'i.
Sir Ian Turbott is also Honorary Consul to the Cook Islands, which commenced its OLPC program in February in schools on the island of Mitiaro.

A letter from the Cook Islands...

2010-02-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

A letter from Thomas, principal at the school on the island of Mitiaro, in the Cook Islands, recipient of the country's first XO laptops in January 2010.

"Kia Orana everyone,

"Here are some photos of the beautiful children of Mitiaro High School learning, teaching, working and having fun with their new tools – XO laptops. In Mitiaro, we are calling it the ‘Rorouira apaipai (literally translated, the carry around computer)
"We spent nearly the whole of week 2 working together as a whole school.
"The school has a team of 6 supervisors (students from correspondence class and one from Fm. 2) who generally look after the administration of the XOs. They remedy little hiccups like battery not charging properly, application disappearing from the homepage, labeling chargers, upgrading the new version and teaching children how to “pick up” their electronic copy of the school newsletter from the server. They get together sometimes to discuss new ideas or turn old ideas to new ones. As in the following example. Right now, all secondary students take home an electronic copy of the Cook Island news on Thursdays. This is one brilliant extension idea ( from the newsletter idea) by the two boys Nia and Joseph. These two boys are very committed to becoming administrators one day. (they think they are the godfathers of the XOs)
"This activity is extended to other classes.
"Senior students actually pick out (filter) their favourite news from the Top news and the General News section, not forgetting the sports section.
"Two days were put aside so that teachers have a better idea on integrating the use of the laptops in the curriculum. In this case, Social Science, language and music. The children just loved the Bio Poems activity that the Social Science advisor had sent us. I wish that I can easily print out the Bio poems.
"The teachers learned a lot from the activities.
"The photos show some of the activities and the student-supervisors assisting the others.
I am working on a draft Emergency plan for the XOs. I am looking at possibly purchasing some solid waterproof bins (enough to contain all laptops and the server and other equipment) so that the laptops are collected or recalled just before a major natural disaster hits.
"I hope to get these out to you all for some feedback. Are there funds available for this idea? (we believe it is)

"Cheers everyone.
"Thomas"

OLPC workbook for education officials

2010-02-21T19:29:00.001-08:00

Pacific OLPC deployment expert, David Leeming, has shared his excellent OLPC Orientation Workbook aimed at education specialists and officials overseeing the introduction of the XO laptop in their country. Leeming developed the Workbook for his recent workshop in Tuvalu, undertaken with funding support from the International Telecommunications Union and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Download the Workbook from our OLPC Oceania document repository or here:
OLPC Orientation Workshop Workbook (Tuvalu).pdf

"I know how to read!" -- a story from OLPC Uruguay

2010-02-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

Uruguay has distributed the XO to all 100,000 of its primary school age children. And now they are sharing stories, including this moving story (in machine translation) from a teacher working with OLPC in the town of Durazno:

In my 6th grade class I had a 14-year-old student that didn't know how to read. He was very anxious to receiving his laptop. He had serious behavior and social problems that he was controlling inside the classrom. When the computers arrived we distributed them and I proposed to write a text in (the XO activity) Write.

He had liked very much a play at the school. He had been moved by and identified with Nacho, one of the characters.

Then he told me:

- Teacher, I want to write about Nacho... but I don't know.
- Come and tell me what you want to write.

He told me orally. He brought his laptop, entered to Write and wrote everything he proposed himself. He knew almost all the phonemes and graphemes, but he didn't know how to join them.

- What a beautiful work you did! Now you have to read it to your classmates.
- But I don't know how to read?
- Ah, it doesn't matter, you will know because you did it, I said in a low voice with complicity and a wink.

He read it many times in silence, he passed it to his notebook, he stood in the front and with tears in his eyes, he read the text to the class.

- I know how to read, I know how to read! - he would shout, excited and smiling!

For him it was an unforgettable day, he wrote and the read aloud... then he read simple texts written in his classmate's XOs... this is how he started his literacy.

Tuvalu readies for XO deployments

2010-02-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

The Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu, population 12,000, is ready to join the ranks of Pacific OLPC countries following a senior-level workshop in the capital, Funafuti. The 10-day capacity-building mission is in advance of deployment of gifted laptops, courtesy of a tranche of 5000 XO laptops donated to Pacific Islands Countries by the OLPC Foundation.
The Funafuti workshop brought together teachers,school supervisors, curriculum officers, and the country's senior education administrators, including Ms Katalina Taloka, Director of Education. The workshop was conducted by Pacific ICT-for-education expert, David Leeming, who has provided guidance on OLPC to the governments of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Nauru and now Tuvalu.
Workshop participants learned about:

Principles of OLPC. Background and history, constructionist learning, and links to Open Education Resources (OER) movement

OLPC in the region. Lessons learned from other Pacific projects.

Technical awareness. Training on the XO Laptop and XS Server. Basics of functionality of the XO laptops, the activities on them, and the XS school server. Localisation – converting the laptop language into Tuvaluan.

Curriculum integration. Using the laptop to support the learning objective. Integrating laptop (and server) usage into the lesson plan. Available curriculum materials. Understanding the learning curve.

Developing an OLPC Country Program plan.

Community and parents engagement and involvement.

Online collaboration – setting up a Google Group and Ning social network and Wikieducator page for Tuvalu OLPC

Mr. Leeming reports the workshop was a valuable exercise for both Tuvalu and the Pacific: "It is early days yet, but I think there is a good potential from the Tuvalu project that may provide a good model for the region."
The mission was supported by Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). OLPC Oceania is a project partner in ITU’s global initiative Connecting Children. In February 2009, ITU and OLPC announced they would combine efforts to bring laptops to school children in the Pacific Islands and the Tuvalu mission was undertaken under this partnership.
Access the deployment plan for OLPC Tuvalu here.

Radio interview: OLPPC on 'In the Loop'

2010-02-10T05:39:00.000-08:00

One Laptop per Child's regional director for Oceania, Michael Hutak, and OLPC Coordinator for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Ian Thomson, are interviewed on Radio Australia's "In the Loop" talk show.

Access the audio file here or visit In the Loop at www.radioaustralia.net.au/intheloop/.

OLPC underway in the Cook Islands

2010-02-10T05:16:00.000-08:00

Cook Islands has embarked on its OLPC adventure with the deployment in early February of 72 XO laptops to children on the remote island of Mitiaro. The laptops are being deployed by the Cook Islands Ministry of Eduction (MOE) and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) division of the Office of the Prime Minister. In fact Prime Minister Jim Marurai has been personally instrumental in driving the project forward.
The laptops are part of a tranche of 5000 donated to the Pacific by the OLPC Foundation, Cambridge, distributed with the technical assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Cooks' Secretary of Education, Sharyn Paio, told the Cook Islands News the government is "pleased that, at long last, these laptops will be put to use and trust that the children and teachers will find them useful."
We will soon share stories, photos and videos from Mitiaro.

Worrying impact of global economic crisis on Pacific education

2010-02-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

A international conference on the impact of the economic crisis on the Pacific has been in underway in Port Vila, Vanuatu, this week. A key theme is the impact on Pacific education, where the crisis has affected both the quality of and access to education -- two key areas which OLPC seeks to address. The conference has been looking at evidence-based investment in education, early childhood development and child protection.
The website has many policy resources available for download including this excellent overview of the issues facing Pacific educators, prepared by Helen Tavola for the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

OLPC holds promise for Guam's kids

2010-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

Recent interest in OLPC from the North Pacific island of Guam:

"It's being called a progressive simple learning tool that will change the way we educate our children. Bruce Best, University Of Guam's Acting Associate Director of Telecommunication and Distance Education Operation says, "This unit doesn't contain Microsoft Windows or an OS system from Mac, but it's loaded with software designed for collaborative learning."

Virtual Museum of the Pacific

2010-01-27T19:01:00.000-08:00

"The Virtual Museum of the Pacific (VMP) is an experimental social media platform that is developed in collaboration between the Australian Museum and the University of Wollongong. The VMP contains 427 objects from the Australian Museum's Pacific cultural collections. Users can explore, tag and annotate these objects with rich media. In this video, we introduce its background, motivations and user experience, and also lead into its future research direction and technology platform."

The Australian Museum is working with the OLPC Oceania Technical Working Group and other partners to develop the user community for the VMP among Pacific children and communities who can access the VMP with an XO laptop.

Visit the Virtual Museum of the Pacific at http://epoc.cs.uow.edu.au/vmp

OLPC overview for Pacific country planners

2010-01-14T18:12:00.001-08:00

Presented at the OLP Country Planning Workshop in Suva, November 2009, this is a broad overview of the actions and approach of partners in the region-wide initiative, "One Laptop per Pacific Child". In 2009, 15 Pacific Island states began OLPC Country Programmes, with pilot projects deployed in five countries.

OLPC Oceania Overview Nov09

View more presentations from One Laptop per Pacific Child.

East African Community shows lead to Pacific possibilities

2009-12-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

The East African Community's recent announcement that it will initiate a region-wide cooperative effort to deliver One Laptop per Child to some of the world's poorest countries is proof positive that if political leaders can overcome their differences and pool their resources then better basic education is possible for the even the most disadvantaged communities.

Pacific Island states introducing OLPC, numbering now 15 countries, will be watching progress in East Africa closely for signs that regional cooperation can assist in scaling up OLPC among countries with poor infrastructure and both physical and political challenges.

Anyone wishing to find out more about the East African initiative should contact Matt Keller, OLPC's Head of Global Advocacy, at matt@laptop.org.

Release: Fiji government embraces OLPC

2009-11-15T05:23:00.000-08:00

Suva, Fiji, November 15, 2009 -- The Republic of Fiji is on target to launch a One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program in 2010 to coincide with the introduction of a new primary school curriculum in the country. Following meetings in the country's capital Suva last week, OLPC's regional director for Oceania, Mr. Michael Hutak, said Fiji had ambitious plans to distribute 70,000 OLPC XO laptops in its schools commencing with a proposed roll-out to 2000 children in the first phase of the program in 2010.

"Fiji's planning is in depth and on target and I am impressed by the broad consultative approach that the government have put in place on OLPC," said Mr Hutak, who met with Fiji's Minister for Education, Mr. Filipe Bole in Suva on Friday. He also met with Fiji's Permanent Secretary of Education, Mr. Filipe Jitoko, and the Deputy Permanent Secretary, Mr. Josef Natau, who is responsible for managing the project.

DPS Natau has established a cross-sector steering committee on OLPC, based in the Ministry of Education (MOE) but with inputs from other Ministries responsible for information, finance, e-government and digital and library services, as well as non-government partners such as the School of Education at the University of the South Pacific. Central to planning is a fully scoped monitoring and evaluation framework which officials are developing with reference to the M&E logframe developed by the Solomon Islands Department of Education for its own OLPC pPilot programme. The Fiji MOE is also looking into integrating OLPC into the new distance learning project it is implementing in partnership with Telecom Fiji in Fiji's more remote islands.

"This whole-of-government approach, with a strong attention to M&E and supported by wide consultations with communities and other stakeholders is a recipe for ensuring sustainability of OLPC not just in Fiji but across the Pacific," said Mr.Hutak, "Fiji's approach is one which other countries in the region might observe and learn."

The meetings came at the conclusion of a two-day OLPC Country Planning Workshop, jointly hosted by OLPC Foundation and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and conducted with the help of the Pacific Regional Initiatives in the Delivery of basic Education, better known as the PRIDE Project, based at USP's Laucala campus in central Suva.

---

The Government of Fiji announced its intention to implement OLPC in a statement in June this year. Fiji is looking for donors to support the project in its initial start-up phase, and has asked the OLPC Oceania Technical Working Group to assist in technical assistance and resource mobilisation.

Fiji is one of at least 15 Pacific island nations to announce an OLPC country program as part of One Laptop per Pacific Child initiative.

One Laptop per Child Foundation is a global non-profit initiative headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. and dedicated to realising better quality education in the developing world through the design, manufacture and distribution of rugged, low-cost laptop computers designed specifically for children aged 6-12.

RELATED LINKS:
Fiji Country Request
Country Planning Workshop

OLPC Australia takes off online

2009-11-01T22:03:00.000-08:00

OLPC Australia has launched an impressive new updated website at http://olpc.org.au, adding to its online presence on Facebook and Youtube.

The new site has a great design, easy navigation and lots of information about OLPC AU's plans to deliver a laptop to every child in remote Australia within 5 years. OLPC AU has already deployed 1,185 XO laptops to 18 remote community schools in the state of Queensland,Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

The charity has attracted some great media coverage including this profile of OLPC Australia's executive director, Rangan Srikhanta, which appeared in The Weekend Australian.

With the support of its founding partner, the Commonwealth Bank, OLPC AU is planning over the next 5 years to "deploy 400,000 laptops at a rate of 10,000 a month in some of the most remote corners of the country".

"People might think it's a pipe dream, but it can be done," Srikhanta told The Australian. "Uruguay did it in less than three years. It's just (having the) will." The following clip is an interview with Natalie Crisp, a Senior Teacher from Shepherdson College, Galiwinku, NT, where OLPC Australia distributed the XO.

Key dox: easy access

2009-10-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Key documents related to OLPC Oceania can now be accessed at our new online document repository at www.box.net/keydox. A permanent link to the repository now appears in links to resources on the right.

Pacific Tsunami: Message of Condolence and Solidarity

2009-10-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

OLPC Foundation expresses condolences to the families and friends of those lost in the earthquake and tsunami of September 30. NZAID has set up a website tracking relief and appeal efforts here. We offer our unreserved solidarity with the people of Samoa and Tonga at this difficult time and look forward to contributing to the effort to rebuild.

OLPC pilot in Patukae thrives one year on

2009-09-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

All eyes on Solomons as evaluation gets underway

2009-09-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

An independent evaluation of OLPC pilots in the Solomon Islands gets underway in the country's remote Western Province this week, marking an important milestone in the application of ICT in basic education in the Pacific.

The evaluation of OLPC deployments in three village schools in Marovo Lagoon has been commissioned by the country's Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD) and will be conducted by the Melbourne-based Australian Council for Educational Research. ACER is the publisher of the OLPC Global Literature Review, the only comprehensive account of evaluation of the XO.

ACER's work will address the government's own Measurable Objectives and evaluation framework. The Solomons' have taken a deliberate and methodical approach to monitoring and evaluation of OLPC since the pilots were deployed in July 2008. It's an approach that has attracted the watchful attention of both donors and the more than 13 other Pacific countries which are introducing OLPC.

For an ongoing account of OLPC evaluations around the world, the blog of World Bank ICT and education specialist, Michael Trucano, is well worth bookmarking.

Solomons endorses scale-up of OLPC pilots

2009-09-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

On the eve of a crucial evaluation of a year-old pilot programme, the Government of the Solomon Islands has endorsed the expansion of One Laptop per Child in the country.

"We anticipate that the evaluation report will provide us with information to to determine the possibility of expanding the programme into more schools in the country," wrote the Hon Matthew Wale, Minister for Education and Human Resource Development, in an open letter to OLPC's Oceania director, Mr Michael Hutak.

Minister Wale also announced his country's willingness to participate in the proposed "OLPC Pacific Pool", a standing stock of XO laptops which will feed Pacific deployments in some 14 Pacific nations which are testing OLPC's innovative approach in learning. Mr Wale also endorsed the efforts of the OLPC Technical Working Group to secure major donor funding for poor countries like the Solomons.

Minister Wale presented the letter to Mr Hutak at a meeting in the capital Honiara. Mr Hutak had been visiting the country at the invitation of the Solomons' Honorary Consul in Australia, Trevor Garland AM.

Mr Hutak's visit also included an audience with the Governor General, His Excellency Frank Kabui, and a site visit to the remote Western Province and the village of Patukae, one of three villages to conduct OLPC pilots. The Solomons is one of five countries to benefit from the donation of 5000 laptops by OLPC to the Pacific. The pilots were deployed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), which is OLPC's deployment partner in the Pacific.

MORE INFO: email OLPC's Regional Director for Oceania, Michael Hutak, or phone +61 412 001 052.

XO demo by OLPC NZers

2009-08-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

Members from OLPC New Zealand demonstrate the XO at the New Zealand Open Government Bar Camp in Wellington. Find out more about OLPCNZ at laptop.org.nz

ABC Radio: OLPC takes off in the Pacific

2009-06-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Short radio feature on Australia's Radio National. Listen here.

PNG forges historic OLPC partnership

2009-04-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

OLPC PNG, led by Director Dr Alfred Tivinarlik of Divine Word University, has forged an historic partnership with PNG Department of Education:

OLPC teachers training at St Peter Chanel Primary School in Erima Port Moresby was successfully completed and the partnership between National Department of Education, Telikom PNG Ltd and OLPC PNG was launched on Friday 24th April 2009 at St Peter Chanel Primary School, Erima by Secretary for Department of Education Dr Joseph Pagelio, Telikom CEO Peter Loko and Director of OLPC PNG Dr Alfred Tivinarlik.

Some relevant links detailing the practical actions on OLPC in PNG:

Pacific ready for OLPC's "quantum leap forward"

2009-04-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

In a key acknowledgment of its growing acceptance in the Pacific, OLPC has been referenced in the region's new strategic education blueprint as contributing to a potential "quantum leap forward" in education standards in the region.

With a vision aspiring to "quality education for all", the Pacific Education Development Framework 2009-2015 (PEDF), cites the OLPC deployments around the region -- now in five countries with eight more in the queue -- as evidence that "Pacific education systems are making increasing use of the advantages [ICT] affords".
The PEDF, launched in March at the 7th Forum Education Ministers' Meeting in Tonga, will guide education policy in Pacific countries in the run up to the 2015 deadline on the Millennium Development Goals.

Citing "encouraging results" from initiatives such as OLPC's programs in Niue, Nauru and the Solomon Islands, the framework (p.19) says students were:

"...more interested and motivated, absenteeism reduced, learning as measured on test scores improved, collaboration and teamwork enhanced, and communication and computational skills improved."

and...

"There is now a potential for Pacific countries to move beyond incrementalism and with assistance of ICTs make a quantum leap forward in realising goals of access, quality and equity in education."

OLPC Oceania is now working with operational and donor partners to turn this vision into reality.

Oceania's first OLPC deployment

2009-04-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

Gaire, 45 minutes from Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby, was the first OLPC school in Oceania, deployed in early 2008 with the technical assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. This story comes from Australia Network's Clement Paligaru and you can read more from Clement on his blog, Pacific Pulse.

Pacific Educators get behind OLPC Oceania

2009-03-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

OLPC won warm acceptance at the recent 7th Pacific Forum Education Ministers’ Meeting (FEdMM), in Nuku'alofa, Tonga this week with no less than 13 Pacific Island countries requesting to participate in a OLPC Oceania Country Trial program. This followed acknowledgment in the keynote address of growing acceptance of ICT and OLPC in the region.

Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Secretary General, Tuiloma Neroni Slade, told Education Ministers and Officials from 16 Pacific nations:

“ An example is the development challenge that the region faces with HIV and AIDS. Information Communications Technology, or ICT, has a much more important role in education than perhaps it did seven or eight years ago. Many countries have engaged with the One Laptop Per Child initiative and we hope that the educational benefits of this and other ICT ventures will be worthwhile, as ICT has much to offer our region.”

OLPC was an official observer at the meeting, alongside regional and international actors such as UNICEF, the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and European Union. OLPC made a joint presentation with its regional deployment partner, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community outlining a regional effort to establish a "Pacific Pool" of XO laptops in the region, feeding Pacific schools with hardware as they become ready to deploy them.

Some 13 nations have requested to take part in the regionwide initiative: Fiji, Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Tokelau, Niue, Tonga, Palau, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Republic of Marshall Islands. Existing small pilots in 5 countries -- Nauru, Niue, PNG, the Solomons and Vanuatu -- will be scaled up and deployments in the other 8 countries will roll out as donor support is mobilised.

Free education for PNG children: Somare

2009-02-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

Papua New Guinea children will get free schooling after policy is put in place next year, Prime Minister Michael Somare says:

Cabinet had decided to cover schooling costs from grade one to grade eight, Somare told AAP on Thursday in Wabag, the capital of Enga Province in PNG's highlands region. "We have decided we should get the policy in place by the beginning of 2010," he said. "We want education from grade one up to grade eight, (where) parents will not meet the cost."

ITU and OLPC Oceania announce Pacific partnership

2009-02-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

ITU and OLPC join forces to bring connected laptops to school children in the Pacific Islands

NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga, 17 February 2009 – The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the One Laptop per Child Foundation Inc. (OLPC) today announced a new ICT development partnership to benefit the school age children in the poorest countries of the Asia Pacific.

On the occasion of the Pacific ICT Ministerial Forum: Connecting the Unconnected held from 17-20 February 2009 in Nuku’alofa, Kingdom of Tonga, Mr Sami Al-Basheer, Director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau and Mr Michael Hutak, OLPC Regional Director, Oceania, announced a new joint effort to bring laptops to school children in least developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular the Pacific Island countries.

This new collaboration will contribute to ITU’s new global flagship initiative, Connecting Children. As part of Connecting Children, ITU is reaching out to partners active in the low cost laptop field to launch innovative public-private partnerships to serve the needs of school children in least developed countries, recognizing that traditional market models are not adequate to reach these children.

Through Connecting Children, ITU aims to build upon existing efforts in technical development, manufacturing, distribution and marketing as well as teacher, student and institutional training, and join forces with various partners under a common banner. ITU plans to announce additional partnerships with other industry players in the coming weeks and months.

OLPC is a global non-for-profit association, committed to the research and development of technologies to revolutionize the education of children. OLPC’s goal is to provide elementary and secondary school-age children around the world with connected laptop computers and enabling software to empower them to learn, explore, experiment and express themselves in new, creative and productive ways. OLPC is further dedicated to bringing this technology first to the world’s Least Developed Nations.

As part of a shared ITU-OLPC effort in Asia-Pacific, ITU will identify potential partner countries and coordinate with Governments and relevant agencies to identify requirements and will handle administrative requirements, including facilitating shipping of equipment.

OLPC will supply laptops to participating countries, with the support of donors, and will work with all partners to realize sustainable programs through cohesive deployment in schools, sufficient capacity-building and effective technical support.

ENDS

Pacific ICT ministers encourage OLPC

2009-02-23T06:17:00.000-08:00

The Pacific ICT Ministerial Forum: Connecting the Unconnected, organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and kindly hosted by the Kingdom of Tonga, took place 19-20 February 2009, at Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu. The Forum included official representation from 16 Pacific Island Countries, 11 Ministers responsible for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and 2 Prime Ministers.

In their communique, Pacific leaders' recognised the

"number of initiatives[1] to make available low cost ICT end-user devices to Forum Island Countries and that these initiatives have brought improved access and use of ICTs, particularly for young people, and that such initiatives should be further encouraged;

[1] e.g., One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

Thirst for learning drives Slumdog spirit

2009-02-23T05:07:00.000-08:00

That's what friends are for...

2009-02-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

OLPC Friends is a community project for enthusiasts, developers and volunteers in the Australia/New Zealand/Pacific region. Launched in November 2008, Friends offers a much-needed platform for social networking among the scattered and varied organisations and individuals working together to bring the OLPC vision to the Pacific and beyond. Friends fills a "people centred" gap missing from existing online OLPC resources and includes forums, volunteer and project registrations, news about OLPC in the region and ways and opportunties for people to collaborate and simply get involved.

Visit the OLPC Friends website to join their mailing lists, community forums, get the latest regional community news and more! Projects and community discussion can be found on the OLPC Friends Forum.
OLPC Friends is taking a hands-on role in mobilising resources to assist trial deployments in Australia and the Pacific. And it is playing an indispensible public interest role by providing an outlet for public discourse, a home for the organic OLPC community, and the electronic resources we need to leverage in order to make One Laptop per Pacific Child a sustainable reality.

PNG to review education system

2009-01-28T19:06:00.000-08:00

The National newspaper reports:

28 JANUARY 2009 PORT MORESBY (Pacnews) --- Papua New Guinea’s education department will conduct an extensive audit of the national education system’s school curriculum reform that it took on board in 2003.

The department’s curriculum development and assessment division (CDAD) said the review was necessary to monitor the first five years of implementation of the reform curriculum.

CDAD head Dr Eliakim Apelis said the department was hoping the findings would help the department redirect the focus of the curriculum reform in the system to ensure a smooth transition for implementation in the next five years.

Dr Apelis said the review was timely amid increasing public views in recent times over the outcome-based education (OBE) and its implementation in schools.

The introduction of the education reforms in 1993, Dr Apelis said, resulted in the structural reform of nine years of basic education that included elementary prep, one and two, (top-up) primary being grades three to eight while making grades nine to 12 the levels in secondary school.

The reform of 2003 introduced a more relevant method of learning aimed at meeting the needs of Papua New Guineans by providing relevant basic education for most of the students…. (ENDS)

School Server demo featuring UNESCO material

2009-01-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

Pacific distance-learning expert David Leeming demonstrates how to use the school server softer for the XO.

PNG adopts OLPC to "transform country"

2008-11-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

PORT MORESBY, 25 November: Papua New Guinea today embraced the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project as the driver of a long-term plan to boost basic education and economic development in the poor South Pacific nation. Acting Prime Minister Dr. Puka Temu told an international summit of parliamentarians from over 78 countries that his government would move to roll out the famous green and white XO laptop to over 1 million school age children in PNG from 2009, after running a series of successful trials in schools and teacher training institutions throughout this year.

"Our trials are already demonstrating that this single smart program is receiving a lot of enthusiasm and support. The Government is finalizing a National Policy for implementation in 2009," Dr Temu said at the Opening Ceremony of the 16th Session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliament Assembly, the world's only multi-national parliament through which the European Union engages with developing nations from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. PNG is hosting this year's annual assembly in its ramshackle capital, Port Moresby.

Dr Temu, deputizing for PM Sir Michael Somare, who was attending the APEC Leaders' Summit in Peru, told the gathering that in his government's "humble opinion (OLPC) will bring enormous benefits to our children, schools and teachers and the volume of benefits if rolled out fully, will cover over 7,000 Educational Institutions from elementary to secondary schools, benefit over 1,160,000 children and 35,700 teachers."

The trials in remote schools and teacher education institutions were conducted with the technical assistance of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and Divine Word University, part of the country's large faith-based education system. Half of the country's school age children are in no formal education, while the other half is split roughly between the church and state school system. From a population of about 6.25 million, half are under 19 years old. There are over 800 different languages spoken and 85% of our people live in rural communities based on the traditional village structure, and they are dependent on subsistence farming supplemented by cash cropping.

Dr Temu said the establishment of OLPC in remote rural areas will "transform this country and greatly narrow the digital divide." Later PNG's Secretary of Education, Dr Pagelio, in a speech to the ACP-EU's plenary, said his government's first priority was to improve the quality of its existing education system.

"The short-term goal here is to complete our One Laptop Per Child pilot and planning phase in 2009 to cover 10,000 children or about 25 or so schools. The medium-term goal is to scale up One Laptop Per Child to reach all our children who are in Basic Education by 2015 (about 250 000 children).

"As we improve quality, increase completion rates and build our capacity, we will also continually seek to bring more children into Basic Education."

PNG's Cabinet is expected to endorse the long range program as part of its forty year strategy to 2050 to lift the country out of its unwanted status as one of the world's Least Developed Nations.

Pagelio: Give PNG children a chance

2008-11-25T18:43:00.000-08:00

SPEECH by Dr Joseph Pagelio, Papua New Guinea Secretary for Education, to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly*, Port Moresby, 25 November 2008.

---

Dear Co-Presidents, Honorable Members of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen...

It is a personal privilege for me to have the opportunity to address you today, as it is an honour for my country to host you all in this important meeting.

There are many things we can all learn from each-other, both developed and developing nations, as we affirm our commitment here together to democracy, human rights and better cooperation between nations and peoples. We also note our shared commitment to work together to achieve global goals and targets as outlined in the Millennium Development Goals.

Papua New Guinea is a young democracy, we achieved Independence only in 1975. We have a population of about 6.25 million, with an average population growth rate of 2.7%. Half of our people are under 19 years old. There are over 800 different languages spoken and 85% of our people live in rural communities based on the traditional village structure, and they are dependent on subsistence farming supplemented by cash cropping.

In this context, as I speak to you today, as Secretary of Education, I am especially concerned with our progress on MDG 2, achieve Universal Primary Education by 2015. About half of our school-age children are not in formal education, and of the rest, half are in mission and faith-based schools, and the other half, about a quarter, are in the state education system. There is a great challenge to increase access to quality resources within PNG schools. Our rural schools are especially disadvantaged by transport costs, lack of infrastructure in telecommunications and electricity, lack of technical support and of course lack of funding.

So you can see, in order to meet our obligations on MDG2 by 2015 is truly a huge national task. The question for us becomes, how can we accelerate progress in a cost effective way? What can we do to make the leap which will see more children attending school, more children completing Basic Education. Here in PNG we have decided that improving the quality of our existing education system is the key. This follows some impressive testing of ICT in education, and we can see that ICT may just be the factor that can help us overcome the challenges we face of difficult terrain, remote locations, of power and communications infrastructure. We believe ICT in education can help us make that leap to achieve our long term goals.

Our government has been engaged in long-term strategic planning to try to meet these challenges within our own budget constraints. Our current Medium Term Development Strategy (2005-10) notes that "Modern telecommunications and the Internet have the potential to greatly expand education opportunities for all Papua New Guineans. By exploiting the opportunities available from the Internet, increased education opportunities can be provided at all levels without adding to budgetary pressures."

Over the course of this year we have been conducting trials in rural schools and in teacher education institutions with the XO laptop of the One Laptop Per Child program. I'm sure you are all familiar with the famous green and white laptop with the little rabbit ears that double as network antennae. These trials have proved very successful in energizing the children, unlocking their creative potential and creating a new collaborative learning environment that goes beyond the school gate and into the community. We are very excited by the prospect of connecting all our communities using the instant wireless network that these computers automatically create. In our villages this computer can work on solar power, it's rugged and can stand the treatment a child can dish out; our children can use it in the bright sunlight or in the classroom. It cannot be stolen or traded because if it loses it's central connection with the school server, it shuts down and becomes useless. It doubles as an e-book reader which means our entire curricula can be digitised and delivered electronically saving us millions of dollars in printing text books. Ten thousand or more books can be accessed from inside the remotest hut. And we can share our own stories in our own languages – all 800 of them --and preserve them for future generations.

And because this meshed network can share a single internet connection, we can see that if this technology can be deployed in remote highland and island villages as well as in larger towns and cities, it will become a catalyst and incentive for us as a government to deliver urgent investments in human resources, in teacher education, in power and communications infrastructure, all of which build long-term economic sustainability.

We are looking at ICT to be a key driver of three strategic objectives for delivering Better Basic Education, objectives which focus on the short-, medium and long term:

FIRST – We want to improve the quality of existing Basic Education. The short-term goal here is to complete our One Laptop Per Child pilot and planning phase in 2009 to cover 10,000 children or about 25 or so schools. The medium-term goal is to scale up One Laptop Per Child to reach all our children who are in Basic Education by 2015 (about 250 000 children).

SECOND – We want to increase the number of children completing Basic Education. We have seen that OLPC can drive an increase in retention and completion rates, as well as lifting teaching standards and the capacity of my Department overall. This is a medium- and long-term goal

THIRD – We want to extend access to Basic Education to all PNG children. As we improve quality, increase completion rates and build our capacity, we will also continually seek to bring more children into Basic Education. This is a long-term process of continuous improvement, which will require a coordinated, whole-of-government effort with the ultimate goal being to meet our Millennium Development Goal commitment to achieve Universal Primary Education (MDG2). We may not make 2015 but we will make it.

In education, our long-term goal is to achieve high-quality systems and standards through reform of the existing education system and more focus on skills development. We see OLPC as the perfect vehicle to drive this agenda.
This initiative also recognizes that if we are to meet our international commitments to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, especially the target of universal primary education by 2015, we must invest in our children now.
Finally, we recognize that while we can aspire to meet our goals, we will need the help and counsel of valued partners to achieve them.
We hope to work with our valued partner in development, the European Union, to develop an integrated strategy and a dedicated ongoing funding stream to enable us to fully develop ICT in education for the betterment of our children and our society.
In our trials we have seen undeniable evidence that given the chance, given the access, our children will embrace new technology to the fullest. It has been extremely heartening to see the skill of their minds on display as they use this world class technology to enhance their learning, and to work with eachother. Our children, like all children, can shine if given the chance. With your help we can give them that chance.

Thank you

One PNG child's vision

2008-11-19T17:11:00.001-08:00

Painting created on the XO by child from Gaire, Papua New Guinea, 2008.

Zimi's story

2008-11-19T00:51:00.000-08:00

Today's six-year-olds reach Y12 in 2020...

2008-10-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

In 1996, internet access was restricted and novel in global terms, today it is wireless and approaching potential ubiquity. So much has changed in technology in the last 12 years, how can we know what will 2020 look like? In education, how do we prepare children for a world we cannot predict? What should education be when information is just a few clicks away?

Here are some things we do know about the school leavers of 2020:

They will be competing for jobs on a global market.
They will be working with as yet undeveloped computational devices, many in still to be imagined industries, in digitally connected communities.
They will need 21st century skills to succeed: information literacy; critical thinking; innovation; creativity; open-ended problem solving; technological fluency...

In 2008 the people of the Pacific are facing challenges from poverty, climate change, globalization, natural and human-made disasters, rapid population growth and increasing rates of urbanizationi. These forces are impacting the natural environment, traditional cultures and practices, food security, local markets and livelihoods, communities and families.

Countries that fail to equip their children to meet present and future challenges will be at an even greater disadvantage when the not-so-distant future arrives. They will hand the baton to a new generation less able to support and raise their own families, and thus more vulnerable social disintegration. As adults, they will risk being left behind, a legacy they will pass on to their own children.

However we have options. We can choose the future. We can help the children of the Pacific secure their future livelihoods. We can give a child a laptop today which can extend her education, broaden her knowledge, expand her skills, and unlock her creative potential. We can provide a laptop to every child to help them make own extraordinary contributions to our complex and increasingly interconnected world. In many Pacific societies this means being better able contribute to the communal well-being of the family, the clan and the group.

It is up to today's leaders to ensure that this aspiration becomes reality. In this context laptops are not the answer but instead they pose a question: Do the children of 2008 in the Pacific deserve an education that will equip them for 2020? At a time when Australia, for example, is rolling out its Digital Education Revolution, delivering one laptop per senior child, the question for Pacific leaders is not whether laptops for children are appropriate, but whether they are going to be early or late in supplying them.

Under the auspices of the Pacific Plan, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community is working with countries and donor partners to deliver One Laptop per Pacific Child.

PIFS08:Niue gets the XO

2008-08-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

Extensive Media coverage of OLPC at the 39th Pacific Island Forum Leaders Summit on the tiny island Niue this week when it became the first nation to give all of its children the XO laptop, in a deployment which coincided with the annual PIF Leaders Meeting on the island locals call "The Rock". Pia Waugh, who donated her time and expertise to the Niue deployment, posted here about her experience. And The Australian Financial Review also covered the milestone as part of their PIF Leaders coverage. [Photos: Ian Thomson SPC 2008.]

XO trials roll out to the Pacific

2008-08-10T09:15:00.001-07:00

One Laptop per Child and the Secretariat for the Pacific Community are working together to give the children of the Pacific access to the digital world: knowledge, information, skills, training, technology, and life-long learning.

OLPC and SPC are committed to community consultation and participation. We are putting the needs of children, families and communities at the centre of our partnership efforts.

Press release: OLPC expands Asian presence

2008-08-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization focused on providing educational tools to help children in developing countries "learn learning," is strengthening its presence in Asia with the appointments of Anthony S K Wong as President of OLPC China and Satish Jha as President of OLPC India.
"With 40 percent of the world's children located in China and India, these two countries are obviously important targets for OLPC," said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child. "Tony Wong and Satish Jha both bring tremendous experience to the goal of expanding OLPC's penetration in Asia and we look forward to their contributions to our progress."

Anthony S K Wong, President OLPC China
Tony Wong has worked in the Hong Kong Government for his entire career. As the Commissioner for Innovation and Technology, he was responsible for the promotion and development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong. Major initiatives included: supporting applied research and development and technology transfer; facilitating the provision of technology support infrastructure and development of human resources; fostering technological entrepreneurship and an innovation and technology culture in the community; furthering technological collaboration with Mainland China and other places; and promoting internationally accepted standards and conformity assessment services to underpin technological development and international trade.
Wong was the Director-General of Telecommunications and the Telecommunications Authority of Hong Kong from March 1997 to August 2003. One of his major achievements was the liberalization of the telecom services and facilities markets in Hong Kong. He also contributed towards the development and promotion of the information infrastructure in Hong Kong and the convergence of the computing, broadcasting and telecommunications industries.
In the international arena, Wong served as Chairman of the World Telecommunication Policy Forum in 2000, Chairman of the Annual Global Symposium for Regulators in 2001 and Chairman of the Policy and Legal Committee of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in 2002.

Satish Jha, President OLPC India
For 18 years Satish Jha has worked at the intersection of technology and management, particularly in the pharmaceutical, healthcare and strategy consulting sectors. He has served as a global CIO and executive with two of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and as CEO of a consulting firm.
Jha has also founded, mentored and seeded a couple of dozen social projects with a focus on technology, business strategies and public policy in the areas of universal access to education, healthcare and bridging the digital divide. He is a member of the UN-GAID (United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development), Special Advisor to the Kofi Annan Center and co-chairs the World IT Forum (WITFOR).
Earlier in his career Jha co-founded the Indian daily Janasatta and was the Editor of The Times of India Group. He has been a National Scholar in India, a Hubert Humphrey Fellow, Ford Fellow, Netherlands Fellow and was granted scholarships for management education by France Telecom and BNP. His co-edited work with Leon Strous on "ICTs for Development and Prosperity" was published by IFIP in late 2007.
About One Laptop per Child
One Laptop per Child (OLPC at http://www.laptop.org) is a non-profit organization created by Nicholas Negroponte and others 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 knowledge and modern forms of education. These XO laptops are rugged, open source, and so energy efficient that they can be powered by a child manually. Mesh networking gives many machines Internet access from one connection. The pricing goal is $100.

SOURCE: One Laptop per Child
Racepoint Group
Jackie Lustig, 781-487-4664
press@racepointgroup.com

OLPC in the Solomon Islands

2008-07-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

Trials for the One Laptop per Child project in Solomon Islands, under the OLPC Oceania program implemented by the Secretariat for the Pacific Community, in partnership with the Ministry of Education.

OLPC deployment at Patukae Primary School, Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands, July 2008, facilitated by SPC (see wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Oceania) by Elnah Tati

Prepare students for rapid change, say APEC Ministers

2008-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

Lima, Peru, 12 June 2008 -- Workers need "to go to higher levels" and to develop their propensity for "critical thinking, creativity, teamwork and self-learning", according to ministers throughout the Asia-Pacific. A Joint Statement issued by APEC Education Ministers anticipates rapid technological change and the need to transcend borders in accommodating them.

"It is not enough to be skilled in Mathematics or grammar," explains Peruvian Minister of Education and Chair of the Meeting, Jose Antonio Chang Escobedo. "Societies are becoming increasingly interdependent. In order to succeed in the future, students will need to be able to share their skills, to collaborate and to cooperate with others. They will need to adapt quickly to change and find solutions to problems that do not even yet exist." They recommend integrating ICT into classroom instruction.

Education is a substantive priority across APEC - not only as a social issue but as a fundament in defining economies and economic relations in the future. "Well educated citizens," says the Statement, "not only contribute to but also make for the social, economic, and sustainable development of our 21 Economies within just societies that value knowledge, promote a culture of peace, understanding and diversity."

Recognizing at once the diversity among cultures as well as a marked escalation in the number of trade agreements and level of regional cooperation, Ministers will concentrate efforts on developing among students the "competencies of the 21st Century...needed to succeed in all aspects of life, beyond the workforce, as an individual, a family member, community member and global citizen."

To this end, they say, curriculums should place critical emphasis on:

* Mathematics and science as a way to navigate in a data-driven and technological world, regardless of occupation;
* Career and technical education, preparing students to make multiple career transitions and to adapt to new technological innovations;
* Learning each other's languages to communicate across cultures; and
* Integrating information and communications technologies into classroom instruction.

While the actual roadmap may vary among economies, there is broad consensus as to desired outcomes and the statement includes a clause citing as imperative systematic educational reform.

The entire Joint Statement can be found at the APEC website: http://www.apec.org/redirect/2008_aemm.html

Press release: SPC on RICS and OLPC

2008-06-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

Ian Thomson joins SPC as Project Coordinator for Pacific RICS and Oceania OLPC

Friday 6 June 2008 -- Mr Ian Thomson has been appointed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) to coordinate its work on the Pacific Rural Internet Connectivity System (Pacific RICS) and Oceania One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) projects.

'I am delighted to welcome Ian Thomson to the organisation as the new Project Coordinator,' says Dr Jimmie Rodgers, Director-General of SPC. 'Ian is a telecommunications engineer with solid experience in working with remote communities, including in broadband technologies, wireline, mobile, wireless and satellite.'

When asked how he feels about his appointment, Ian simply states, 'I feel like Father Christmas! I get to give out laptops to children - who could say no to that? Not only will it help them learn, but it will also help all community members to engage with Internet technology and get connected to the global network. I am also excited about setting up RICS sites around the region like the one launched recently in Gaire, in Papua New Guinea.'

The Pacific RICS aims to provide Internet access to rural and remote Pacific communities that are currently not serviced by commercial operators. The technology uses small 1.2 or 1.8 metre satellite dishes and therefore requires low power to operate, which means it can be solar powered. A 'network-in-a-box' server provides the networking capability that allows Internet connectivity, a laser printer, WIFI wireless access and computers networked via cables.

Ian will be establishing the 16 RICS pilot sites across the region. The first site was launched a month ago in Gaire, a rural community located an hour's drive southeast drive of Port Moresby. The other pilot site in Papua New Guinea is in Bougainville, with the remaining sites in Cook Islands, Kiribati (2), Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands (2), Tokelau, Tuvalu, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The Oceania OLPC initiative, another component of Ian's work for SPC, consists of a pilot roll-out where 5000 OLPC laptops will be distributed to remote and rural areas in the Pacific, connected through RICS. Pacific governments and private sector stakeholders, as well as non-governmental organisations and other development partners, are being approached to collaborate to come up with the necessary funding to obtain a minimum of 100,000 units, which will cost approximately USD 200 each.

Ian says, 'We are going to Gaire next week with David Leeming, a project consultant specially hired to help with the roll-out of the Oceania OLPC programme. We will start with providing laptops to 30 children in one class and hopefully by the end of the year we will have laptops for every child at the primary school. We consider every RICS site to be an OLPC hub.

'Recently we went to Boston [USA] to discuss the OLPC Oceania programme at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology - OLPC headquarters]. We also looked at ways other countries, such as Peru, Uruguay and Pakistan, have gone about implementing their roll-out programme. It was very inspirational and we got lots of good ideas.

'As a team, we want to help each village start an OLPC project. We call on foundations and other donors to join the project and help us match the donation of 5000 laptops from the MIT lab to kick this project off.'

Ian will be based in Noumea, New Caledonia, and his wife, Sherrin, and three daughters plan to visit as much as possible from their home in New Zealand.

--

For more specific information, please email Ian Thomson, Coordinator for VSAT and Community Information Centres, at iant at spc.int or phone him on +687 262000, or email Rosita Hoffmann, SPC Communications and Public Relations Adviser, at rositah at spc.int.

Dreikikir Primary School, East Sepik, PNG

2008-06-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) trial deployment in Dreikikir Admin Primary School, East Sepik, PNG, June 2008, facilitated by Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Oceania

Connectivity coming to rural and remote areas

2006-06-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Noumea, New Caledonia -- Tomorrow, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), New Caledonia's telecom company, OPT, and Pacific IP, a private telecommunications operator, will introduce the Sky Edge VSAT initiative. The technology will be demonstrated to a diverse audience and members of CROP agencies inlcuding Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat at SPC's Noumea headquarters.

Sky Edge VSAT, which is quick and easy to install and runs on solar power, can provide satellite internet access and telephone connection in remote areas. It gives people living in these areas the ability to connect to the outside world, offering them new opportunities for distance learning, access to health information, and help in emergencies. More than 80% of all Pacific Island people live in such areas.

"More and more Pacific leaders are asking us to extend our services to cover remote areas as well as urban areas and island capitals," says Dr Jimmie Rodgers, SPC's Director-General, who himself grew up in the rural Western Province of Solomon Islands. "People in urban areas are very familiar with the benefits of the Internet and other information and communication technologies. Now, new methods of accessing these technologies can spread the benefits to remote communities and clearly provide us with new ways of delivering our services and improving our people's general standard of living - as we endeavor to promote good governance and sustainable development, improve health care and education systems, and achieve more equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities."

For more information, contact Mr Sam Taufao, SPC Information Technology Manager and Mr Steffen Holtz, Director of Pacific IP, on +687 790442 (mobile).

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1993-10-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

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