Nicholas Negroponte at the conference TEDx Brussel

In November 2009, OLPC Europe France OLPC invited to the conference TEDx Brussel where Nicholas Negroponte OLPC had come to speak of ( see video ). In addition to this wonderful day we had the chance to meet Nicholas Negroponte who granted us this interview. OLPC France is staffed by volunteers: it is therefore here that we asked - I hope all the volunteers of the world will appreciate this exchange!

Bastien Guerry: The first G1G1 was instrumental in the formation of a large community of volunteers for the OLPC project in the United States. Since then, this community has grown and many local communities (or "grassroots") have emerged worldwide. How OLPC is working with the volunteers?

Nicholas Negroponte: The volunteers are divided into three categories: the developers, those involved in deployments, and those who help in a professional capacity.

The open source is a key part of OLPC. Although the XO allows dual boot Windows and Linux, only a few thousand (and more) of the 1.3 million deployed using Windows XO. The other benefit from the support of a number of volunteers that has sometimes exceeded 3000. Remote locations such as Afghanistan have a very strong contingent of volunteers.

Deployments of the summer of 2009 involved approximately 100 volunteers who distributed XOs in 19 African and two South American countries. They stayed an average of 10 weeks with a week of training with the African Group in Kigali, Rwanda. The idea for the association olpc (lowercase) was to spread the idea of a more grassroot methods that "top-down" used exclusively so far.

Professionals - especially lawyers, creative advertising or communicating - to contribute pro bono OLPC since its inception. What these professionals have in common is not to save costs for free, but in each case to be the best in their class, much better than those that could normally afford. Look for "Larry Weber" on Google and you'll see why OLPC was on "60 minutes". [Editor's note: see the video on cbsnews.com ]

BG: In my experience, fans of the OLPC project are first attracted by the XO and technological aspects of the project. They want to play with the hardware and software development. But the OLPC is an educational project. What can we do to help communities to reach more teachers and to work with them to make XO the best tool for new educational opportunities?

NN: There are two methods:

The first occurs spontaneously with young teachers when they find the technology attractive and they appreciate the connectivity that they would not otherwise. This is especially true in remote and rural areas where young teachers do not wish to be otherwise.

There is also the approach "Trojan Horse" where the XO is simply offered as a reading light. Teachers do not then need to adopt advanced digital means or to become experts in multimedia. School programs do not need to change (immediately). But instead of this, the children "come out at night," so to speak, and use them as the XO computer.

BG: Have the ability to have small amounts of XO via the Contributor Program is very important to spread the XO and its educational model throughout the world. Do you plan to expand this program and distribute more than "small amounts" of XO?

Small quantities are difficult to manage logistics, support and to demonstrate the merits of the project, which is the most important. Machines give developers something else and this course should be increased.

The simple answer to the request, deliver and manage lots of small support several small deployments is typically the work of the sales force within the company and is the way to grow a small business. But the biggest challenge is to demonstrate the merits of the project. OLPC is its name - One Laptop Per Child - and this project includes a basic principle: the saturation. Like a vaccination program, you can not just inject the vaccine some children. You have to vaccinate everyone. For this reason, it really does not make sense to deploy 30 or even 100 computers. Worse, when there are so few, people tend not to let children take the computers home. Worse, people use it as "laboratories" of 5 to 15 children sharing one computer.

In some of these cases, people evaluate the OLPC program and say it does not. Of course, the "laboratories" computer does not work, except to learn about computers. We know that. It's like to vaccinate ten children to see if the vaccine works. Think about the OLPC as a vaccine against the lack of education.

BG: You announced recently that the OLPC would be split: the OLPC Foundation (who will develop new concepts for the XO) and the association olpc (who will manage the production and deployment). This will he an impact on the work of volunteers?

NN: The two entities will volunteer. Those interested in learning deployments and work with the association. Those interested in communication, engineering and management of humanitarian work with the Foundation. The total number of volunteers of these two entities is expected to increase significantly.

BG: New G1G1 on the horizon?

NN: No centrally, maybe one or two countries will. This made sense two years ago when the netbooks did not exist, when the curiosity was there and that the idea was new. Last year it failed in part because of the economic situation and partly because of other reasons.

The generation of the XO 3.0 will be disruptive and innovative enough to revisit this idea in 2012.

Translation: Lionel Laski - read the original interview in English.