My names is Lars Bo Andersen and I am a PhD student at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. I am doing a ph.d. on IT and development in Africa which is based on an ongoing study of an One Laptop Per Child project in Nigeria. I am currently two years into the project with two years remaining.
Next year I am arranging to travel around South America with my girlfriend. I have never been to South America before and I would like to take advantage of the situation and visit people and places with relevance to my academic work so. This is where the OLPC community comes into the picture.
Who Should I Meet in OLPC South America?
Do you know of any people or places that could/would direct me in the direction of schools using XOs or people with hands on experience, or just people worth paying a visit?
We know for certain that we will be travelling through Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil, but we hope to include as many countries as possible in our travel plans. I have no network in South America so I write in the hope that you would guide me towards interesting OLPC contacts in South America.
I would be very grateful if you could help me in this regard. You can leave ideas in the comments section below, or email me directly. Thanks in advance for your help.
Hello Bo, regards from Santiago. I am sorry to say that Chile hasn't have the luck to deploy the XO within it's children. But we are deploying Sugar through the Sugar on a Stick solution. We are expecting to have 2 or 3 more schools deploying Sugar next year (school year starts in March). Best wishes,
werner
Werner,
Greetings from Denmark and thanks for your response. I guess that I will just have to relax and enjoy the company of the nice Chilean people this time and then come back again in a few years :-)
Hi, Lars Bo, regards from Concepción. I'm a college student at 'Universidad del Bío Bío'. I think, in my university a lot of people could be interested in OLPC an the XO's.
May be, if you send me an email telling us about your project, i could show them to my teachers and we could make you some contacts.
Hola Antonio
Agh, que mal suerte, I just left Chile and went into Argentine.
But I am grateful for you offering to help me in Conception, and it would have been a nice to visit your university, maybe I will have the opportunity another time!
The OLPC community (or just those interested in IT and learning)in South America indeed are friendly, helpful, and an intelligent bunch. So cheers to all of you!
Hi there,
I am doing my research for my master thesis at the Institute of Education in London comparing the use of the XO at home and the school in Uruguay. I know quite a few people here that you might like to meet depending what you looking for.
Best,
Mauro
Hola Mauro
Thank you for your reply. That sounds really wonderful. I am simply interested in experiences learned when implementing the Plan Ceibal. Low-tech, everyday, mundane, experiences. Great visions and technological praises I can get from the media :-) Maybe you can post some names here or, perhaps, to protect their privacy send me a mail at viajeros@larsbo.org?
Thanks a million!
P.S. If I could read your thesis when you are done I would be very grateful. Sounds like very interesting (and valuable) work!