The OLPC PH Special Interest Group at Software Freedom Day 2008 Quezon City, Philippines
We had a lot of fun during the Software Freedom Day celebration at the National Computer Center in Quezon City. Major props to Bluepoint with Engels and Magie Antonio for spearheading the organization of the very successful event!
I didn’t get myself involved with Ubuntu for this year’s Software Freedom Day celebration. Instead, I focused on our small, but thriving OLPC Philippines Special Interest Group where we had a table and placed a bunch of XO-1 and prototype B2 and B4 machines as well as some Ubuntu laptops with the Sugar emulator for people to really appreciate the hardware and the potential of the software.
Harry Harrison also joined us and took time to explain to people about the XO-1 hardware and what OLPC has been doing. There were a lot of questions ranging from “Where do I get this?” to “When is it coming to the Philippines” and other related questions (“Does it run Ubuntu?”. We also had the chance to talk to press people, but since we’re currently a hobby group, we can only point to the right resources and people to get in touch with. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to tell about with regards to local pilots and stuff like that with the OLPC and XO-1 despite the fact that almost all the major UMPC/4P computer brands are readily available in the market quite cheap (you can get an Intel Classmate 1 here for something like $200 USD). But the fact that people are able to really see and use the XO-1 make them realize its difference to the current crop of Netbooks and UMPCs being sold at retail.
Of course, any meetup is not complete with the obligatory group photo. Too bad Harry left early as he wanted to go to the mall early to get a new router. If there is one thing that I enjoyed doing this day is that it was truly refreshing to do something else not related directly to Ubuntu (we’ve grown our local community to a point that others can become resource persons easily).
Some of you are still celebrating Software Freedom Day at this moment – create magic and inspire people! That’s the best result any SFD or advocacy can achieve.
Tagalog is in danger of being disabled in the lenny release of the
Debian Installer. If you are interested in helping fix this, read here:
http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2008/09/19#di-freeze-lenny7
Thanks for posting this. I’ve already contacted the main guy responsible and see if its workable for Lenny.
If you were allowed to see the units, I’m sure you would’ve been a blockbuster hit!
great …. OLPC is a nice group
[...] Jerome Gotangco dans son blog Engage the World rapporte les festivités de la Journée du Logiciel Libre au Centre National de l’Informatique à Quezon City. L’an passé, Jerome s’est impliqué dans la promotion d’Ubuntu, mais cette année il a attiré l’attention One Laptop Per Child. Le XO-1 a été remarqué et beaucoup ont demandé «quand est-ce-qu’il arrive aux Philippines» et «est-ce-qu’il tourne sous Ubuntu?». Jerome affirme que l’utilisation du XO-1 a permis au gens de toucher du doigt ses différences avec les Netbooks et les UMPCs actuellement sur le marché. « Créer la magie et enthousiasmer les gens! c’est le plus beau résultat dont un SFD ou une plaidoirie puisse rêver». Images sur le lien. http://engage.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/the-olpc-ph-special-interest-group-at-software-freedom-day-20... [...]
Hi Jerome,
if you are interested, join our chat server.
It has a bunch of folks from the US and Canada and the UK.
sugar-control-panel -s alabamaxo.org
Cheers,
Kev