olpc.tv

After a repressive history, Uruguay’s left-wing government is paving the way for a new generation of digital-savvy, globalised nationals by being the first country to give every child their own laptop.

Ex-guerilla fighter, Jose Mujica, has been in office since 2010. He has never given up his ideals of social justice. The aim of the ambitious ‘A laptop per child’ program is to help close the divide between rich and poor, and between developed and developing countries. Many parents and teachers were initially sceptical; years without proper social policies still shape life in the slums.”I don’t want to know anything about computers. It is a child who knows something about computers and technology that throws bombs.” Yet despite early scepticism, the program is now being widely embraced. “We need to educate the children differently so that they understand the world of today.”

Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aVE1-7ZZOM

Uruguay pioneers global educational initiative

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I got to play with the new Marvell Armada PXA618 powered One Laptop Per Child XO-1.75 laptop during the ARM Technology Conference. It seems to already be very stable and run very fast, although this is still a beta prototype, with beta software, OLPC, Red Hat, Marvell still have some work to do to optimize the software and complete the hardware so that it can be mass produced and shipped to children around the world starting early next year. Here in this video I walk around with it outdoors for a few minutes and show you some of how it looks like.