OLPC Afghanistan

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One Laptop Per Child Afghanistan
This is the Official SUGAR-LABS Wiki page for "One Laptop Per Child Afghanistan" project.


 * [[Image:OLPC-Dari.jpg|One Laptop Per Child Afghanistan-Dari]]

OLPC Afghanistan
OLPC Afghanistan team consists of
 * Members of Ministry of Education Afghanistan
 * Members of Ministry of Communications and IT Afghanistan
 * USAID's Afghan Small and Medium Enterprise Development (ASMED)
 * Roshan
 * PAIWASTOON Networking Services Ltd.



For further information please visit OLPC Afghanistan Wiki, official OLPC Afghnistan website, Official OLPC Afghanistan Dari Weblog or contact implementation team under supervision of [mailto:info@paiwastoon.com.af PAIWASTOON Networking Services Ltd.].

Volunteer Team
Read More about the OLPC Afghanistan volunteers here.
 * 1) [mailto:usman.mansour@gmail.com Usman Mansour Ansari]
 * 2) [mailto:sohaib@paiwastoon.com.af Sohaib Obaidi Ebtihaj]

OLPC Afghanistan Team
Read about the OLPC Afghanistan Team here. You can join our FaceBook group for fresh and updated news as well.

OLPC in Afghanistan
The mission of this Not for Profit Organization is to create an environment for OLPC, take necessary steps to ensure every child in Afghanistan get the laptop and develop the Local Activities for OLPC laptops that could revolutionize how we educate our children. The goal is to provide every child in Afghanistan with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves in a collaborative way.

Afghanistan is a very famous for being a multicultural country. Participation of the OLPC project in Afghanistan will not only revolutionize the way we teach children, the vision behind this "educational" project, but also scale up the eco-system of sharing between the diverse set of communities existing in the central Asian countries.

The Ministry of Education, Ministry of Communications and IT, USAID Afghanistan Small and Medium Enterprise Development (ASMED), Roshan Telecom and PAIWASTOON Networking Services are working together to improve education and bring new opportunities for economic development through low cost computing and computer literacy for the Afghanistan's future workforce.

First 11,500 localized XO laptops with Dari and Pashto content will be deployed to 285 schools in form of computer labs, with 21 laptops in each school. These 11,500 laptops shall reach over 85,000 children across Afghanistan.

1st deployment (pilot) will take place in the following provinces:
 * Baghlan (20 schools)
 * Herat (25 schools)
 * Ningarhar (25 schools)
 * Kabul (188 schools)
 * Balkh (25 schools)

OLPC technical implementation team started working on 19th of November 2008. We are now in the process of finalizing localization of laptop into Dari and Pashto, preparing training materials for teacher trainings, do some power testing experiments and much more! First laptops shall be deployed during December time into Ningarhar province and after winter holidays we will continue with other provinces. For detailed info about OLPC Afghanistan, please visit official OLPC Afghanistan Website or OLPC Afghanistan Blog. You can also join the [|OLPC Afghanistan volunteer team].

=Implementation Plan= Here is the list of schools in 5 provinces of Afghanistan, where the OLPC Laptops will be deployed.
 * Kabul
 * Baghlan
 * Balkh
 * Herat
 * Nengarhar

comment here.

=The Structure of Technical Operations= The first diagram shows the structure of Technical operations of OLPC Afghanistan. The Second one is the chart of Laptop Update and Maintenance procedure and the job of each team member. The third diagram is showing an example of networking sites available for teachers in schools.

Sections: The whole Technical operations can be divided into 5 sections. This section's responsibility is deployment of OLPC laptops to schools with all related logistics and actions. Dispatch center takes over the laptops from Ministry of Education, makes sure they are operational and uploads them with all activities (programs) specified. Technical trainers are responsible for education of teachers and at the beginning of the project also for education of Technical operations staff. User service teams provides support for teachers and schools what OLPC laptops concern – troubleshooting, documentation creation, development of new activities (programs). This team will closely cooperate with Ministry of Education on development of new content and activities for OLPC already deployed where MoE will provide the Curricular specifications and content and User service team developers will create the programming part. Localization team is responsible for translating the current activities into Dari and Pashto. This activity will take place at the very beginning of OPLC project.
 * Deployment teams section
 * Dispatch center section
 * Technical trainers section
 * User service team section
 * Localization team section

=Job descriptions of each position= Following are concrete job descriptions of each position within Technical operations.

Main responsibilities: __________________________________________ Main responsibilities: __________________________________________ Main responsibilities: __________________________________________ Main responsibilities: __________________________________________ Main responsibilities: ___________________________________________ Main responsibilities: ____________________________________________ Main responsibilities: ____________________________________________ Main responsibilities: ____________________________________________ Main responsibilities: ____________________________________________ Main responsibilities: ____________________________________________ Main responsibilities: ____________________________________________ Main responsibilities:
 * Position:	Technical implementation manager
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:svetla@paiwastoon.com.af Svetlana Senajova]
 * Coordinating whole technical side of OLPC
 * Communicating with Project manager at the MoE
 * Monitoring and evaluation of technical aspects of OLPC implementation
 * Coordinating of reporting to Project partners (Roshan, ASMED, MoE)
 * Position:	Deployment technician
 * Team:	Deployment team
 * Responsible Persons:
 * 1) [mailto:mustafaaslamy@yahoo.com Mustafa Aslamy]
 * 2) [mailto:waris.niazi@gmail.com Abdul Waris Niazi]
 * Deploying computers to schools
 * Checking mesh network created automatically by XO laptops
 * Checking and installing basic electrical work for laptops
 * Connecting computers to internet via GPRS
 * Position:	Deployment intern
 * Team:	Deployment team
 * Assisting Deployment technicians with laptop deployment to schools
 * Checking mesh network created automatically by XO laptops
 * Checking and installing basic electrical work for laptops
 * Connecting computers to internet via GPRS
 * Position:	Dispatch center officer
 * Team:	Dispatch center
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:manoochersalam@hotmail.com Manoocher Salam]
 * Receiving shipped laptops from MoE
 * Checking their functionality
 * Installing developed software on OLPC
 * Cooperation with Deployment teams
 * Completing reports and statistics
 * Position:	Tech trainer
 * Team:	Training team
 * Responsible Persons:
 * 1) [mailto:omer.niah@gmail.com Omer Niah]
 * 2) [mailto:ab.adelyar@gmail.com Abdullah Adelyar]
 * Training of teachers – technical aspects of using OLPC (basic usage, troubleshooting etc.)
 * Training of Deployment teams – technical specifics of deploying of OLPC
 * Training of User services officers – usage of OLPC, troubleshooting
 * Position:	User services director
 * Team:	User services team
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:musa@paiwastoon.com.af Mohammad Musa Aziz]
 * Coordinating work of User services team
 * Assigning placements for members
 * Communicating with MoE regarding new activities (applications) development
 * Overseeing documentation creation
 * Overseeing incident database and Support line
 * Overseeing fixing laptops and linked logistics
 * Overseeing development of new activities (applications)
 * Review of content materials and communicating it to MoE for approval
 * Position:	User services officer
 * Team:	User services team
 * Responsible Persons:
 * 1) [mailto:palwasha_etibari@yahoo.com Palwasha Etibari]
 * 2) [mailto:your.faithful@yahoo.com Mohammad Hamed]
 * 3) [mailto:jamal_nasir42@hotmail.com Jamal Naser]
 * Writing documentation for use of activities (programs)
 * Helping to write specification for new applications for OLPC
 * Creating Help pages/manual for teachers
 * Operating Incident database
 * Remote support for laptops
 * Checking/fixing laptops that arrive
 * Checking diagnostic programs
 * Answering support line
 * Position:	Developer
 * Team:	User services team
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:mngafghan@gmail.com Mohammad Naser Gulzada]
 * Develop / Adapt activities (programs) for Afghan Curriculum
 * Support training university students
 * Develop and finalise standard OLPC images for deployment (client & server)
 * Developing community web applications
 * Position:	Dari language translator
 * Team:	Localisation team
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:daneshwar@paiwastoon.com.af Bashir Ahmad Daneshwar]
 * Translations of software content from English to Dari
 * Position:	Pashto language translator
 * Team:	Localisation team
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:jawedsamsor@gmail.com Jawed Samsor]
 * Translations of software content from English to Pashto
 * Position:	Community Development Liaison
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:sohaib@paiwastoon.com.af Sohaib Obaidi]
 * Community Building for OLPC Afghanistan, i.e community promotion of OLPC AF around the world, manage and update Facebook & other related groups, send news mails, update blogs etc.
 * Update OLPC Afghanistan Website
 * Send news around OLPC forums (grassroots, wiki and other online related sites...)
 * Deputy for the Economic Development of OLPC Afghanistan.
 * Position:	Economic Development Officer
 * Responsible Person: [mailto:gulistani@paiwastoon.com.af Asmat Gulistani]
 * Generating ideas, collecting data about trainings, research etc.
 * To provide with relevant information to parents and which would help them with education and most importantly to increase the family income.

=Deployment News= Finally after 1 month OLPC-AF got 10 XO's for test lab for its office in PAIWASTOON from the Ministry of Education Afghanistan. These XO's are used for experiments and testings in OLPC-AF Office by its technical team, inorder to develop and test new activities and software for XO's.

Also we got two Educational Trainers from MoE as well, for training master trainers, who may train teachers of projected pilot schools.

In its first deployment plan OLPC-AF provides 900 XO's to every single kid in a school in grades 1-6 in Jalalabad city of Ningarhar province. The school name has still not been declared. Right now we have only 500 XO's in country. We would like to deploy XOs during last week of January. As we do not have sufficient amount of XO's currently available here we would like to deploy to all children in selected grades at first - we will make sure that all children in those grades receive XO's and once we receive remaining amount from OLPC we would deploy XO's to the rest.

Localization of XO's into Afghan languages (Dari & Pashto) is almost in its final stages, Pashto translation is completed both in pootle online translation server as well as our Entrans translation server, Dari translation is completed offline and now is been uploading to the pootle server and the translation over Entrans is also going well. Beside the final touches to the translation/verification of strings our localization team is loading files into online translation software inorder to put them into the XO's and waiting for MoE, MoCIT & ACSA to approve the translations. Then that will be tested and uploaded to the XO machines before the deployment.

Our software developer are developing a literacy game for Dari and Pashto languages together with Afghan satellite teachers. Our Technical Trainers and User Service Officers are almost finished with documents for support of teachers; e.g. Teacher & Student User Manuals, online libraries etc.

=Lets Explore XO= ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD, That’s our name and our vision. We want to create education opportunities for the world poorest children. By providing each and everyone for the rapid, low cost, low power connected laptop.

"XO" a computer unlike the any other, designed specifically to work in tough conditions and remote areas. It comes packed with software inductivities to help kids learn, explore, create and share. No matter what language they speak or where they live, the XO connects them to each other to the world and to a brighter future. We are non-profit organization, which makes these kids our mission, not our market. That’s why that, wherever the XO goes, there are five core principles, everyone agrees to:
 * 1) First kids get to keep the laptops, they have to be free to take them home and use them whenever they want. That’s a kind of point.
 * 2) We are focused on the early education, which means kids about 6 to 12 years old.
 * 3) We have to deal in large numbers of laptops, so whole the classrooms and schools get them at the same time. So no-one gets left away.
 * 4) Kids should have a connection to the internet, because there are neat stuff to learn on the internet
 * 5) Finally, the XO must include free and open source software. Then the laptop itself can easily grow and adapt with the needs of the child.

So in the nut shell, that’s us. An organization that makes a small computer to serve a big cause. Bringing education to the children all over the world with ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD.

Why give a laptop to a child who may have no electricity or even running water? That’s a very good question. But, if you substitute the world a laptop with education, the answer becomes clear. You don’t stop education, until all other challenges are solved. You do them at the same time, because education is the foundation of the other solutions. That’s why we designed the XO to work in the places that needed it the most.
 * The real question is, WHY?
 * Rapid, because these are kids after all, and kids stand to be, well, KIDS.
 * Low cost, so we can make a lot of them for very little, low power. So even in places with no electricity, it can be charged with alternate sources like solar power.
 * Connected, so kids can access the internet, share files with each other and collaborate on projects.
 * The XO also has a screen; you can read in direct sun light. Because many of the children go the schools at doors.
 * The XO comes with a built-in web-cam for pictures and video clips on the tone of education focused software.

All these features and many many more add up to one incredible result. When the XO comes to a classroom or village, kids get engaged, inspired, they go to school more after and stay there longer. They draw pictures, play music, make movies, and write stories. They figure out, how to do new things and begin to teach each other and even the parents. With the XO, kids learn to solve their own challenges and one day, they might even help us solve ours.
 * -That’s how will change the world and that’s the best answer to; WHY GIVE A LAPTOP?
 * -So give a laptop, Change the world.

Here are two slideshows about the introduction to OLPC XO's in English and Dari.
 * [[Image:Slide0018_image029.jpg]]
 * Meet the OLPC XO (English)
 * Meet the OLPC XO (Dari)