Khaled Hassounah, director of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program in Africa and the Middle East, has spent the last year touring schools in Nigeria. He and his team chose a school 10 miles outside Nigeria's capital, Abuja, to deploy the company's first child-friendly laptops in the region.
These 10- and 11-year-old students are lucky to share three books per academic subject, a clock, bell, wall calendar and science equipment consisting of a lever. Students in less fortunate schools might share three books in total. With the XO Children's Machine, OLPC hopes young students will have the tools to shape their own education.
Credit: Khaled Hassounah
The local community built this school, now well worn, from plaster, wood and tin. One hundred and fifty students and three classes cram into the two-room building, in a space which would comfortably fit around 70 children in the UK.
Credit: Khaled Hassounah
This school's only computer may be the one painted on the wall, but that doesn't stop the teacher from instructing students on how to boot up, operate a mouse and save files. The teacher has never used a physical computer either, and has instead learned theory from a credentialed instructor.
Credit: Khaled Hassounah
Hassounah shows the students how to boot up their open-source laptops. The bright colours were designed to appeal to children, but the bug-like antennae are mostly practical. Two wireless receptors magnify the laptop's ability to net an Internet connection, which varies in availability throughout the test regions.
Credit: Ahmad Dan-Hamidu
During a rigorous training session, Hassounah instructs the students to identify and hold aloft each of the laptop's components, starting with the power adaptor. The step-by-step instruction is part of how the children will learn to respect and use what will now be their personal education tool.
Credit: Khaled Hassounah
The parents in the community gather at another school to hear the headmaster and OLPC staff speak. Hassounah explains that gaining the parents' understanding and support was crucial to choosing the school for the first deployment of the free XO laptops. The yellow houses in the background are model homes built into the community's centre to encourage prosperity. None of the school's families live there.
Credit: Khaled Hassounah
This school is the first test deployment site for OLPC's XO laptops. OLPC installed a satellite dish, power generator and modem to give the school electricity and Internet connectivity.
Credit: Khaled Hassounah
After becoming more comfortable with their laptops, the children begin to explore with programs, settings and physical units. One of OLPC's major goals is helping children feel comfortable customising their laptop configurations and guiding their own learning. Some laptops barely made it out of the plastic packaging before the students began experimenting.
Credit: Khaled Hassounah
The interface of the XO Children's Machine was designed to reinforce concepts of teamwork and interconnectedness. Pentagram and Red Hat collaborated with OLPC to conceptualise the pictorial 'Sugar' GUI. (Learn how to emulate the OLPC Sugar GUI for Mac or Windows here.)
Credit: One Laptop Per Child
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