Last week, three trailblazers working on the OLPC Nepal project made the journey to Butwal, about 250 kms southwest of Kathmandu. This town is very close to Lumbini which is known as the birth place of the Buddha. Last week however, the majority of the visitors to the area were there for a regional IT Exhibition/Conference. This was the perfect place to give a live XO demo to help spread the OLPC word.
Himali, Ankur and Shankar, three of OLPC Nepal's key members, made the arduous bus journey without incident, spurred on by their excitement at the opportunity to show off the fruits of their months of hard work.
Shankar gave an excellent presentation of the XO features as well as delving into some of the content that has been specifically designed for Nepal. The audience contained several hundred people from various industry sectors including IT and Education and the presentation was very well received. Nepal's State Minister of Science and Technology Man Bdr. Visworkama, who was the chief guest of the event, also took a separate overview of the XO curiously.
This was the one of what we hope will become a regular promo activity for OLPC Nepal in the coming months. There is no doubt that one of the biggest challenges in making a project like this one work is in obtaining the support and involvement of the community and we hope that by giving them as much information as we can on XO that we will be able to achieve this.
Having said this, its not clear how often Ankur and Shankar will be wanting to take bus rides with goats and chickens around the more remote regions of Nepal! Although when greeted by smiling faces like the one below it is hard not to be motivated to keep trying to do more. Thanks guys!
