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.
OLPC and Ubuntu at Software Freedom Day 2008 – NCC, Quezon City, Philippines
After Ubuntu Love Day Manila 2008, I thought it would be interesting to take the back seat and do something light as a follow-up and still get in touch with the community. It was also good timing on my part as I got sick for a week (after Ubuntu Love Day) and got swamped with work when I went back. I’ve gotten myself involved lately with grassroots efforts for One Laptop per Child (OLPC) in my community and it is at the early stages of being formalized so I thought this coming Software Freedom Day celebration in my city would be a good place to re-introduce OLPC project, the XO-1 laptop, and even show how we can run Ubuntu with the XO-1 to provide a different computing environment. I asked my friend Rowen Remis Iral of OLPCPH to join as well. There’s also a good chance I’ll be able to get some suggestions to be able to fix the B2-1 unit that I accidentally upgraded (not bricked) weeks ago.
I approached Magie Antonio of Bluepoint Foundation if this was feasible and approved of the idea the same day we chatted about it online. So far we got 4 XO-1 machines as demo units and I’ll also bring my HP Mininote 2133 running 8.04 LTS. Too bad the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 won’t be on sale till next month so I guess that will have to wait.
So if you’re in Quezon City and not doing anything on September 20 and want to check out the OLPC XO-1 with Ubuntu running and even learn some stuff about Free/Open Source Software, join us at the National Computing Center in Quezon City! You can read more about the event at http://bluepoint.com.ph/sfd08
There is also a celebration happening at the same day in Makati City at the University of Makati if Quezon City is too far from your place. Unfortunately, I’m not going there.
