Changes

1. Planes, trains, and automobiles: While everyone else has been preparing for SugarCamp, I've been traveling across Europe, fulfilling some prior commitments. "If it is Monday, this must be Tampere." I had a chance to attend a gathering of the Indo-German Business Forum (http://pratham.de/?p=12) sponsored by Pratham e.V. in Düsseldorf and garnered a lot of interest in the use and support of Sugar in the subcontinent. (Pratham's goal: "Every child in school… and learning well.") I also had a chance to address the free software community at a meeting in Bolzano, Italy, where my theme was the why—not just the how—of Sugar and free software: the appropriation of knowledge within the context of a critical dialog is a powerful model for both learning and software development. I'm in Finland now, fulfilling my obligations as a visiting faculty member at the University of Tampere. I taught a class on journalism and open systems. (In a life before Sugar, I was the running a program at MIT called "News in the Future".) The gist of the program was discuss: our many mistakes from the past and the opportunities afforded by open communication, open knowledge, and open media—concepts that my generation seems to struggle with, but are second nature to the youth of Finland and probably youths everywhere.

1. Planes, trains, and automobiles: While everyone else has been preparing for SugarCamp, I've been traveling across Europe, fulfilling some prior commitments. "If it is Monday, this must be Tampere." I had a chance to attend a gathering of the Indo-German Business Forum (http://pratham.de/?p=12) sponsored by Pratham e.V. in Düsseldorf and garnered a lot of interest in the use and support of Sugar in the subcontinent. (Pratham's goal: "Every child in school… and learning well.") I also had a chance to address the free software community at a meeting in Bolzano, Italy, where my theme was the why—not just the how—of Sugar and free software: the appropriation of knowledge within the context of a critical dialog is a powerful model for both learning and software development. I'm in Finland now, fulfilling my obligations as a visiting faculty member at the University of Tampere. I taught a class on journalism and open systems. (In a life before Sugar, I was the running a program at MIT called "News in the Future".) The gist of the program was discuss: our many mistakes from the past and the opportunities afforded by open communication, open knowledge, and open media—concepts that my generation seems to struggle with, but are second nature to the youth of Finland and probably youths everywhere.

2. Regional Sugar Labs have been a topic of discussion on each stop in my travels (and also in my recent trip to Peru). A distributed project—we chose to name Sugar Labs, plural deliberately—where there is a local sense of ownership and associated entrepreneurship feels like the right course for us as an organization. Sugar Labs "central" is the community itself, which would be responsible for setting clear goals and maintaining any necessary infrastructure needed by the project as a whole, while the regional labs would use the own means to make Sugar relevant to their local communities. But what is the "business model" for a successful Sugar Lab? It seems that some necessary conditions for success would be:

2. Local Labs have been a topic of discussion on each stop in my travels (and also in my recent trip to Peru). A distributed project—we chose to name Sugar Labs, plural deliberately—where there is a local sense of ownership and associated entrepreneurship feels like the right course for us as an organization. Sugar Labs "central" is the community itself, which would be responsible for setting clear goals and maintaining any necessary infrastructure needed by the project as a whole, while the regional labs would use the own means to make Sugar relevant to their local communities. But what is the "business model" for a successful Sugar Lab? It seems that some necessary conditions for success would be:

* a university connection as a local human resource

* a university connection as a local human resource

6. First National Volunteer Network Support Plan Ceibal: On November 15 there was the first national meeting of the  registered volunteers (RAP) for Plan Ceibal, the Sugar/OLPC deployment in Uruguay. The meeting was attended by 300 volunteers, with representatives from 17 departments around the country. The citizens of Uruguay are very active in their efforts to ensure that their national project is a success. It is great that the project is so open to the volunteer community.

6. First National Volunteer Network Support Plan Ceibal: On November 15 there was the first national meeting of the  registered volunteers (RAP) for Plan Ceibal, the Sugar/OLPC deployment in Uruguay. The meeting was attended by 300 volunteers, with representatives from 17 departments around the country. The citizens of Uruguay are very active in their efforts to ensure that their national project is a success. It is great that the project is so open to the volunteer community.

7. [[Sugarcamp|Sugar Camp]] is underway in Cambridge.

7. [[Marketing Team/Events/Sugarcamp Boston 2008|Sugar Camp]] is underway in Cambridge.

8. [http://www.mashupcamp.com/mountain-view-november/ Mashup Camp Mountain View] will be held on 17–19 November.

8. [http://www.mashupcamp.com/mountain-view-november/ Mashup Camp Mountain View] will be held on 17–19 November.

9. Self-organizing map (SOM): Gary Martin has generated another SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see [[:Image:2008-November-8-14-som.jpg]]). It is great that the peak in the center of the image is a cluster of "Sugar", "Work", "Make", and "Think".

9. Self-organizing map (SOM): Gary Martin has generated another SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see [[:Image:2008-November-8-14-som.jpg]]). It is great that the peak in the center of the image is a cluster of "Sugar", "Work", "Make", and "Think".

[[Category:Sugar digest]]

[[Category:Sugar Digest]]