I've blogged about the OLPC project a couple times already, not as a political statement but just as a fascinating idea based on some interesting technology and a vision - which if bold - could have a long lasting impact on some of the poorest countries in the world. We typically purchase something techie as a raffle item when we sponsor events (monitor, GPS, etc), but the OLPC thing felt interesting and like good karma!
We set it at up the Orlando Code Camp and had a LOT of people stop to ask about it. Here are some of the common comments/questions we received:
- I think most people - me included - expected it to be a little bigger. It's child sized though!
- I think everyone who knew about it (about 50% of those that looked at it) was thrilled to actually hold one and talk about the project
- Of those that knew about, easily half of them were looking for the hand crank. It can be powered by a hand cranked generator, but as noted here it didnt make sense to build the crank into the laptop, instead relying on an external system that could also be used for other things.
- Of those that had not heard about it, most were interested in the idea and the technology, a few were dismissive because it would be of no use to them personally
- Many asked about the software on it. OLPC is based on open source, runs on Fedor Linux, and you see a list of the applications loaded on it.
- The display is not a touch screen
It was fun to get it and share it with a lot of people and I hope the winner enjoys it or finds a way to give it to someone that will. As a raffle prize I think it wasn't the greatest; we spent more time talking about the laptop than we did about our training services! Maybe the good karma will translate to business though.
