[IAEP] Sugar Numbers

[Sebastian Silva]

On 15/05/15 21:44, Dan Tenason wrote:
>
> laptop.org states that about 900,000 XOs are in Peru. I was wondering
> if Mr. Silva, who is active in Peru, is willing to comment on the
> number of laptops in daily use in Peru.

Perhaps like Adam, I am first and foremost a volunteer, who has been
often critical of central government deployment.

There was a wide, official survey in 2013, whose results summary are
available here <http://educaciontic.perueduca.pe/?p=810> [1].
On page 21 it says:
Laptop Educativa Primaria:  64% operative, 36% inoperative     /(XO-1 in
rural schools)/
Laptop Educativa Secundaria: 71% operative, 29% inoperative /(XO-1.5 in
towns, without Sugar)/

The machines themselves have proven quite durable. Two pages later, 52
and 53 percent of respondents state that the cause for inoperativeness
was "deprogrammed/deconfigured". Personally, I attribute this to the
misguided DRM locking mechanism (wrongly called "security"). I can't
think of another practical way to "unconfigure" a laptop to the point of
it being inoperative. This is my informal perception from the field as
well: The main reason laptops aren't used is this locking mechanism.

Our own (SomosAzucar+SugarLabs Platform Teams) first version
grassroots-community driven operating system update, which was
distributed officially by the Ministry in 2014, has a monitoring
mechanism that is able to tell us how many machines have been installed
which have ever been online on the Internet. At this time there are over
27300 laptops who have ever called home. Considering low connectivity
penetration, and the fact that this OS is aimed only at primary, rural
schools, we are quite pleased with the adoption of this project.

Certainly it is still possible to have a massive impact in Peru, thru
these laptops. Our own volunteer efforts are aiming at setting up a
permaculture station/learning laboratory in the rainforest region, where
we can have a place to experiment and work with volunteers in the field,
with different kinds of technologies applied to the environment and
common good [2].

Our logic is, the value of the project is not the the sum of value of
each individual equipment, it is potentially the value of a network of
children who have cameras and connectivity at their disposal. What is
the value of a network of children, actively sharing information about
their surroundings? It is not measurable, I think. This is the
inspiration that continues to fuel our efforts, regardless of the hardware.

As a technical volunteer in the field, my time is of a lot of value,
especially since we are in the middle of an expedition.
So I would ask you to share more about your own project so that we can
better give you relevant information and try to help you be useful to
the ecosystem.

Regards,
Sebastian

[1] http://educaciontic.perueduca.pe/?p=810
[2] http://pe.sugarlabs.org/ir/ClaVi

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