"How much? Can i buy it?"
The question we got from almost all the visitors. And why not, this cute little low-priced rugged laptop is soo lovable everyone would wanna buy it for their kids. But wait (the wait might get a little longer), this laptop is for FREE - to be freely distributed by the Government to all the students. Nevertheless, although the banner behind us clearly said, "This is an educational project" and we pasted "Not for sale" stickers all over the laptop, people still continued to reach their hands to their wallet as they see the laptop.
The crowd was unbelievable
Although most of the visitors already knew about the OLPC Project, for most of them it was the first time they were witnessing a live XO. Sometime back there was quite a massive media coverage about this laptop being distributed to the children of Mustang, so we had a lot of question regarding that too. When deployed these laptops gonna go to Government schools first. So a lot of people were disappointed as most of them had their kids going to a private school.
There even was this guy, who told us that he came to CAN InfoTech just to see the laptop. No wonder he was impressed!
OLPC Nepal brochure
We also got a lot of people interested to work with us on the project. Some of them have also left their email and phone number to be sure we'll call them when needed (of course, we let them know that OLPC Nepal is a totally non-profit organization and we all are volunteers). So our next big step: grab them! A hackathon would be really nice.
Apart from couple of people, everybody seemed quite excited about the laptop. Few raised legitimate questions on the price of this laptop and the corruptions that might get attached.
Look at those inquisitive eyes..
The worst part is, our 20+ XOs are still at Custom Office. We tried hard to get them out and demonstrate them at InfoTech, but the Government procedures, u know, are enigmatic.. :)
