[Sugar-devel] The future of Sugar on XO-1s

[Tony Anderson]

I generally think of the olpc mission as:

Provide a laptop computer to every student at a community school which 
is on the wrong side of the digital divide.

This mission implicitly includes providing a school server as a means to 
make some internet content available locally and some
local orientation to teachers and staff to enable effective use of the 
computers.

The OLPC approach was to convince the national Ministry of Education to 
provide XOs to every school in a country. However, at our
less exalted olpc level, it has meant school by school. The typical 
school deployment has involved a sponsor who provides the funds to
purchase the equipment and a dedicated volunteer to go to the school and 
install the equipment and provide the initial orientation. The
sponsor and volunteer typically come from the right side of the digital 
divide.

OLPC came up with the brilliant marketing scheme G1G1. Sadly, the 
associated sales campaign was based on the disastrous 'helicopter' 
notion that
all that was required was to deliver the computer to the students.

No effort has ever been directed at community building because the OLPC 
model was direct interaction with Ministries. The associated model of 
indvidual sponsors (e.g. Rotary Clubs, M+W Groups Care for Kids, a 
dedicated former Peace Corps volunteer, or an expatriate wanting to pay 
forward) has never been well served.

I such a sponsor approaches me, the first message is that you can't just 
write a check to get laptops. The next is that you will need to find a 
well-qualified computer specialist to get the system installed and set 
up. Finally, you have to transport the laptops to the deployment solving 
problems with customs (I even once had to go to Rwanda's FCC counterpart 
to get the XO-1.5 certified).

For marketing, our objective should be to attract sponsors for 
deployments. For this, we need a good story which shows the benefits of 
Sugar to improve
the educational opportunity offered by the community school and a simple 
process for the sponsor to carry out the deployment. I don't think we 
have that story today.

Naturally, making Sugar visible to a wider population in the 
'sponsoring' world is beneficial. Telling the story of working olpc 
deployments is important. Having a readily available laptop for 
deployment is essential.

For example, does anyone have current information on the Uruguay 
deployment? These students have been using the XO for nearly a decade. 
What impact has that had? What needs for Sugar have resulted from that 
experience. Does the Sugar community have a deep and ongoing 
relationship with Plan Ceibal?
How are they keeping the inventory of XOs viable as the equipment ages? 
How has Plan Ceibal handled the transition from primary school to 
secondary school, taking advantage of the primary school students skills 
and knowledge?

Tony

On 04/08/2016 07:34 AM, Dave Crossland wrote:
>
>
> On 6 April 2016 at 17:24, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com 
> <mailto:sdaly.be at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 5:39 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com
>     <mailto:dave at lab6.com>> wrote:
>
>         How many kids is Sugar targetting?
>
>         Low millions? Or billions?
>
>
>     A few years ago, I estimated at around 10 million the number of
>     teachers in classrooms with younger children, and I suggested we
>     target them. Any teacher-friendly, ultrasimple, reliable setup and
>     maintenance Sugar solution could work towards that goal.
>
>     ...
>
>     In my view Sugarizer has a very key role to play - overcoming the
>     unfamiliarity barrier for teachers. Which could, ironically, boost
>     the opportunities of the Sugar/GNU solutions.
>
>
> I agree with all of the above
>
>     I do feel that View Source is a key differentiator of Sugar, and I
>     subscribe to the "low floor, no ceiling" idea.
>
>
> I think the fact that "View Source" is a famous web browser menu item 
> is poignant for this discussion, especially given the power of the 
> Firebug-style web developer modes of all the big browsers today.
>
>     I believe the very simplest and most reliable is ...
>
>
> I think we ought to think in terms of addressable market, and for me 
> with that perspective the ranking is,
>
> Sugarizer in a browser,
>
> Sugarizer installed via packages for existing mobile systems,
>
> Sugar/GNU in a VM (which I wonder could be ideally bundled with VM 
> software and presented as a "desktop app"),
>
> Sugar/GNU on a stick,
>
> Sugar installed via packages for existing GNU systems,
>
> Sugarizer/Android preinstalled on hardware
>
> Sugar/GNU preinstalled on hardware
>
> Sugar/GNU preinstalled on rugged hardware
>
>
>
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