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Dec 07, ‘07 — UNICEF, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Google today announced the launch of ” Our Stories “, a joint initiative to preserve and share the histories and identities of cultures around the world by making personal stories available online in many languages.

Using laptops, mobile phones and other recording devices, children will record, in their native languages, the stories of elders, family members and friends. These stories will be shared globally through the Our Stories website, where they can be found on a Google Map.

By making these stories accessible around the world, the Our Stories project hopes to contribute to a better understanding of our shared humanity across countries and cultures, across religious traditions, across languages, and across generations.

Low-cost XO laptops by One Laptop per Child will serve as a foundation to help build this digital archive of personal stories by providing children in developing countries with easy-to-use technology to record their stories and interviews.

The Our Stories website will initially include stories collected by Brazil’s Museum of the Person and stories recorded for UNICEF by young people in Ghana, Pakistan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Our Stories has taken inspiration from the StoryCorps project in the United States founded by MacArthur Fellow Dave Isay. “StoryCorps is proud to lend its experience in recording the conversations of nearly 30,000 Americans to this global undertaking,” said Isay. “These efforts teach us that the lives of everyone – whether they are in New York or Nairobi – matter, and that they will not be forgotten.”

More stories from more countries will be added to the site every month in an effort to preserve an oral history of humanity in the 21st Century.

Leading figures have already lent their voices to the project: Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Queen of Jordan and UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children, and Ishmael Beah, UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War and best-selling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, have all recorded messages welcoming users to the site and encouraging them to share their stories.

Listen to a story today at OurStories.org.

Microsoft Unlimited Potential Group has released a statement detailing the company’s efforts to expand flash-based Windows XP support in addition to Intel’s Classmate PC and ASUS’ Eee PC, as well as Microsoft’s plans to expand flash-based Windows XP support for low-cost hardware computing devices.

REDMOND, Wash — Dec 05, 2007 — As part of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential effort to bring the benefits of technology to the next 5 billion people by transforming education, fostering local innovation, and enabling jobs and opportunity, Microsoft today announced plans to further expand flash-based Windows XP support for low-cost hardware computing devices.

This builds on the success of similar support for devices such as Intel Corporation’s Classmate PC and ASUS’ Eee PC, complementing Unlimited Potential’s focus on transforming education in emerging segments.

As part of this commitment, Microsoft plans to publish formal design guidelines early next year that will assist flash-based device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience. In addition, there will be limited field trials in January 2008 of Windows XP for One Laptop per Child’s XO laptop. Microsoft’s goal is to provide a high-quality Windows experience on the XO device; if this is achieved, then Windows XP for the XO could be available as early as the second half of 2008.

Governments evaluating purchases of the XO should continue to consult with Microsoft regarding possible Windows XP availability date, pricing and support policies. In addition, there are no plans to offer a version of Windows that is compatible with the XO laptop for retail purchase in the U.S. and Canada.

Microsoft Unlimited Potential will continue to work with a variety of partners to support this emerging class of devices as part of its effort to help bring social and economic opportunity to the estimated 5 billion people who are not yet realizing the benefits of technology.

More information can be found at Microsoft.com/unlimitedpotential. A detailed background on Microsoft’s work to port Windows to the OLPC XO can be found at blogs.technet.com/jamesu. More at Microsoft.

Khartoum, Sudan — Dec 03, ‘07 — Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir on Monday pardoned a British teacher jailed after letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad, and officials said she would be released and would fly back to England later in the day.

Lord Nazir Ahmed and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Monday at his presidential palace to plead for Gillian Gibbons’ pardon.

Gibbons had been sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation for insulting Islam because her students gave the teddy bear the same name as Islam’s revered prophet - a violation under Sudan’s Islamic Sharia law.

The jailing of Mrs Gibbons has led to an international outcry and has embarrassed the government. The case inflamed passions among many in Sudan, where demonstrators called for her to be put to death.

Lord Ahmed thanked the president for granting the pardon and said both he and Baroness Warsi were proud to have been able to help Mrs Gibbons.

“This is a case which is unfortunate, unintentional, innocent misunderstanding, and as British Muslim Parliamentarians we, Baroness Warsi and myself, we feel proud that we’ve been able to secure Gillian Gibbon’s release.”

In a written statement released by the presidential palace and read by Warsi to reporters, 54-year-old Gibbons said she was sorry if she caused any “distress.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the news, saying that “common sense has prevailed.” “She will be released into the care of our embassy in Khartoum after what must have been a difficult ordeal,” Brown said in a statement released by his office.

More at BBC News.

Dec 02, ‘07 — Two UK Muslim peers who are in Sudan to lobby for a jailed British teacher to be released will meet the president on Monday, a presidential aide has said.

Baroness Warsi and Lord Ahmed have delayed their return to the UK and Lady Warsi said they had “made progress”. But she would not confirm the aide’s announcement of a presidential meeting.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, of Liverpool, was jailed for 15 days on Thursday for insulting religion by letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Baroness Warsi,  a Conservative peer, travelled to Sudan with Labour’s Lord Ahmed on Saturday in the wake of Gibbons’ imprisonment for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammad. Some Islamists considered the decision an insult as the Muslim Prophet is also called Mohammad.

In her first public comment since her arrest, Mrs Gibbons said she had been treated well and made a light-hearted comment that she been given so many apples that she “could set up my own stall”.

However despite her apparent good spirits, she is being held in secret due to fears for her safety after crowds of protesters marched in the capital Khartoum on Friday demanding a tougher sentence. Some called for the death penalty.

More at Reuters, BBC News.

“Why would a kid in the developing world need a laptop of all things, when they might not have food, they probably…in some cases don’t live beyond the age of five, they don’t have drinking water and parents earn dollar a day or less?

Good grief why should they have a laptop?

Take the word laptop and substitute the word education and no body would say that.

This ( XO Laptop ) is probably only hope. I don’t want to place too much on OLPC, but if I really have to look at … sort of … how to eliminate poverty and create peace, and work on the environment, I  think, I can’t think of a better way to do it.” Says Nicholas Negroponte.

Nov 30, ‘07 –Nicholas Negroponte, the founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) non-profit organisation, has worked to use computing as a means to bring education to the poorest regions of the world.

Since 2005 the focus of Professor Negroponte’s project has been to develop an innovative laptop that will be distributed to children across the developing world and cost about $100.

But founding pioneering initiatives is nothing new to the American computing guru. He obtained two professional architecture degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s and then set up MIT’s Architecture Machine Group in 1968.

In the 1980s he co-founded and directed the MIT Media Laboratory, where much of the technology that enabled the “digital revolution” was developed, including wireless communication, and progressive approaches to how children learn.

Professor Ken Morse, an MIT colleague, has called him: “An indefatigable leader. He has done an amazing job of recruiting incredibly busy people, including me, to help him with his crusade to bridge the digital divide”.

He has made it clear that his vision is not about the laptop itself. “It’s as if people spent all their attention focusing on Columbus’s boat and not on where he was going,” Professor Negroponte told The New York Times. “You have to remember that what this is about is education.”The latest laptop model, the XO, is now in production, and with interest from several developing nations, including Nigeria, Uruguay, and Libya, Negroponte’s vision is slowly becoming realised.

More at BBC News, LaptopGiving.org, OLPC.

Nov 29, ‘07 — BBC news is reporting on this shocking story of a British teacher being found guilty in Sudan of insulting religion after she allowed her primary school class to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, has been sentenced to 15 days in prison and will then be deported. She had been accused on three counts of insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs.

The Foreign Office said it was extremely disappointed by the verdict. Her lawyer says she will now appeal. The prime minister, Sudanese embassy officials in London and UK Muslim organisations all expressed the hope that Mrs Gibbons would be released.

But Sudan’s top clerics had called for the full measure of the law to be used against Mrs Gibbons and labelled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam. She could have faced up to 40 lashes.

In September, Mrs Gibbons allowed her class of primary school pupils to name the teddy bear Muhammad as part of a study of animals and their habitats. More at BBC News. Photo Credit: BBC.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass –BUSINESS WIRE– Nov 22, ‘07 — One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization dedicated to providing every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression, is extending its recently launched Give One Get One program beyond the initial two-week limited time offer through December 31, 2007, in the USA and Canada

On November 12, OLPC launched the Give One Get One program for individuals in the USA and Canada to support the OLPC Foundation by paying US$399 for two XO children’s laptops – the buyer gets one laptop and the other is given to a child in the developing world. The donated laptops will go to children in such countries as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Mongolia and Rwanda.

“In the past 10 days, we’ve experienced an outpouring of support from the public that is truly gratifying and encouraging,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child. “Because so many people have asked for more time to participate either individually or in order to organize local and national groups to which they belong, we have decided to extend Give One Get One through the end of this year.

During this extended period we will solicit input and transition to a program of giving only at the beginning of 2008. We want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to act upon the giving spirit of the holiday season.”

$200 of the Give One Get One contribution is tax deductible as a charitable donation. Give One Get One donors also get access to one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi access, which is available at more than 8,500 locations throughout the United States.

In addition, XO laptops can be purchased for educational purposes and in quantities of 100-999 at $299 each, 1000-9999 at $249 each, and 10,000 and up at $199 each.

To date, donations to the Give One Get One program have averaged US$2 million per day. You can order one at Laptopgiving.org

On November 06, 2007 mass production of the so-called $100 laptop has begun, five years after the concept was first proposed. Computer manufacturer Quanta has started building the low-cost laptops at a factory in Changshu, China.

One Laptop per Child (OLPC), the group behind the project, said that children in developing countries would begin receiving machines this month. Last month, OLPC received its first official order for 100,000 machines from the government of Uruguay.

“Today represents an important milestone in the evolution of the One Laptop per Child project,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of OLPC. The organisation had reached the critical stage despite “all the naysayers,” he said.

The green and white XO machines pack a number of innovations which make them suitable for use in remote and environmentally hostile areas. The machine has no moving parts and can be easily maintained. It has a sunlight-readable display that allows children to use it outside and, importantly for areas with little access to electricity, it is ultra low power and can be charged by a variety of devices including solar panels.

Although OLPC eventually plan to sell the machines for $100 or less, over the last year, the machine’s price has steadily increased and now costs $188. More at OLPC.

BELLEVUE, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov 02, ‘07– T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced it is partnering with One Laptop per Child for its Give One Get One initiative. T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot access to people who donate an XO laptop to a child in a developing country through the campaign.

The Give One Get One philanthropic campaign puts laptops into the hands of children in the developing world. For a limited time – from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26, 2007 – people can donate $399 for two laptops. One laptop will be given to a child in the developing world. The other laptop will be sent to the donor along with information on how to activate the one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot service.

“We are delighted that T-Mobile is partnering with One Laptop per Child and offering complimentary Wi-Fi access to people who participate in the Give One Get One program,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child. “This is a terrific offer that we encourage people to take advantage of, and we thank T-Mobile for its generosity and support of OLPC and the Give One Get One program.”  

For more information about OLPC and Give One Get One, please visit LaptopGiving.org.

The first official order, of 100,000 machines, for the so-called “$100 laptop” has been placed by the government of Uruguay. The order will be a boost for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation behind the project which has admitted difficulties getting concrete orders. 

“I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written,” Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the organisation, recently told the New York Times. However, he said he was “delighted” with the first deal. 

It is durable, waterproof and can be powered by solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers. It includes a sunlight readable display so that it can be used outside and has no moving parts. 

OLPC aims to sell the laptop for $100 or less. However, over the last year, the machine’s price has steadily increased and now costs $188. 

From November 12, people can buy a machine for themselves as well as one for a child in a developing country. The Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) programme will initially distribute laptops to Cambodia, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Haiti. More at BBCNews, Laptopgiving.org, OLPC