Wow, talk about some great ideas floating around! :-)

That was my first reaction two weeks ago when I first learned about what would eventually become the "olpc realness summit" that Waveplace's Timothy Falconer announced last weekend:

What a great location!

Waveplace is pleased to announce the OLPC REALNESS SUMMIT.

• No hype
• No bashing
• No wireless
• No room service

Just straight talk about what works, what doesn't, and why we do what we do.

WHERE: Maho Bay Camps on the island of St John, US Virgin Islands (steps from the beach)
WHEN: May 28, 29, 30, 31
HOW MUCH: $300 for four nights, including lodging

Twelve invited talks and discussions, three a day, from five continents and the Caribbean:

* WAVEPLACE: Tim Falconer
* OLPC: Adam Holt
* SUGAR LABS: Bernie Innocenti
* ASIA: Mike Dawson from the OLPC Afghanistan
* SOUTH AMERICA: Marta Voelcker from Brazil and Carlos Rabassa from Plan Ceibal, Uruguay
* AFRICA: Beth Santos from the Step Up OLPC (São Tomé and Príncipe)
* EUROPE: Christoph Derndorfer from OLPC Austria
* CARIBBEAN: Lunise Cerin from Haiti, formerly of USAID and Save the Children, and John Engle of Haiti Partners
* NORTH AMERICA: Christine Murakami from Columbus School for Girls, Ohio

The summit will take place at the same time as Waveplace trains 40 new mentors in three schools which shall lead to some interesting overlap in terms of discussions and real-life observations.

To say that I'm excited about this gathering of people would be quite the understatement. In fact this summit will likely turn out to be the single most interesting and exciting week since I first got involved with One Laptop per Child 3 years ago! It will be an opportunity to meet up with old friends (Bernie, remember to reserve a couple of hours for a one-on-one discussion about constructivism!;-) and finally get facetime with people whose work has greatly inspired me for a long time.

So please head over the realness.org to learn more about the speakers, the event and how to register for it.

This being olpcnews we'll of course do our best to cover the event as broadly as possible to add on to the video recordings of the sessions that Waveplace is working on setting up. And for everyone who is coming to the summit: Can't wait to meet you all at Maho Bay!