OLPC at BETT Olympia

Today was our first day at BETT – education’s largest international conference on technology in education.

We were very fortunate to have been loaned 3 OLPC XO laptops by Tomi Davies (OLPC’s CEO for Nigeria) to demonstrate the platform’s Open Source Software and the incredible computer that runs it which was designed from the ground-up specifically for children in developing countries.

The response has been absolutely amazing! We have been completely inundated all day, every one wanted to touch it, see it and BUY IT! The PC was featured on the BBC news this morning and is discussed at some length in various pages on their website. Here’s a link to today’s article.

Our hosts at BETT – Open Forum Europe – kindly provided us (The Open Learning Centre) the stand space (come to stand SW105 if you are there) to assist them in spreading the word about the use, availability and power of Open Source for education and community development.

BETT 2008Here’s a quick photo of us with three OLPC XOs, [left to right] Alan Lord (me), Tomi Davies, Margaret Udo (Nigerian Teacher) and my partner at The Open Learning Centre Alan Bell.

Once I get my breath back we’ll do a more in-depth review.

Press Release here: http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com/content/view/59/84/

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3 Comments

  • Tomi Davies says:

    It was a pleasure to meet “the OLC Alans” and work with you at such short notice. The response to the XO is not surprising and I look forward to the P difference meaning Partnership.

  • Alan Lord says:

    Thanks Tomi – it has been a great couple of days for me. And the interest from the “developed world” especially for twinning schools was immense. I think we have a long and productive future…

    Alan(L)

  • Kyttkat says:

    Well done lads, look forward to hearing more.

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