All Greek OLPC to me
It now sounds like Thodoros Karounos of Metsovio University and coordinator of the OLPC Greece Initiative Committee has his hands full with contributors like Simos Xenitellis. HomeBoy MediaNews reports that:
The Greek project associated with OLPC has many volunteers, including 250 people with programming, translation and other skills and another 250 primary and secondary school teachers. The team includes lawyers, PhDs, English teachers and one young student who is in the sixth grade of primary school.Why might so many volunteers be needed? The Greek team is in a race against the clock. Greece has set a target of 20,000 computers for 300 schools by September and MiDWaN says 15,000 computers could be Children's Machine XO's for "dimotiko" (the sixth grade of primary school) and "gymnasio" (the second class of junior high school), focusing on mathematics and physics.
A full OLPC Greece implementation would mark a dramatic shift in the target market for One Laptop Per Child. Greece is not Brazil or Nigeria, its part of the European Union and its education system is relatively well developed. Might this be the first move by Quanta Computer to enter the "developed" world market?
A future mature market Christmas?
The Financial Times reports that Quanta Computer is exploring ultra-low-cost (~200 USD) computer production targeting developed markets in the next 12 months.
Michael Wang, Quanta's president, said on Tuesday that the concepts developed through the OLPC project could be applied to create commercially viable machines that are cheaper than anything on the market so far.So maybe this is a solution to the ever-preset problem of OLPC eBay sales, rumors of OLPC retail sales, and a whole other way to get the Children's Machine XO in USA schools: direct parental purchase of OLPC-equivalents through normal retail channels."We will definitely at the right time launch a commercialised product similar to the OLPC," he said in an interview with the Financial Times, adding that several of Quanta's customers were seeking to launch such a product.
Thanks for the pingback. However, a correction is needed. "Dimotiko" is the primary school (first to sixth grade classes)while "Gymnasio" is the secondary education from first to third grade classes. Then is "Lyceum" secondary education, fourth to sixth grade classes. Just for your readers to understand how the Greek system works.
It helps that Mr Negroponte is a Greek-American and Greece wants to honour its project.
Sorry, for my previous comment, I wanted to say "It helps that Mr Negroponte is a Greek-American and Greece wants to honour his project.".
Mr Negroponte even visited Greece on 16 of March and talked about the OLPC with the Greek Prime Minister and the government cabinet.