Peru: Software Libre
,----[ Quote ]
| The software industry's pressure on the Government to crack down on piracy,
| unlike that from the movie industry, is likely to cause them far deeper
| losses as customers are forced to discover free alternatives.
|
| News of universities in Peru taking advantage of these free, “open source”
| alternatives might mean this change is already on the way, potentially saving
| the Peruvian economy hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Thousands of
| graduates highly-trained in open source technologies might lead to Peru's
| institutions rejecting hard-sold and expensive lock-in agreements with
| companies such as Microsoft when the same software, often of equal or greater
| quality, is available for free.
|
| El Comercio reports that universities in Abancay, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cerro
| de Pasco, Chiclayo, Huancayo, Lima, Piura, Puno, Tacna and Trujillo, are now
| giving classes and workshops in open source alternatives.
`----
http://www.livinginperu.com/news/6270
Recent:
Laptop Training Begins in Peru
,----[ Quote ]
| This week, teachers from remote rural villages in Peru are gathering in
| several regional cities to learn how to do their jobs via One Laptop per
| Child (OLPC) machines distributed to their pupils. Peru is now engaging in
| the world's most ambitious OLPC deployment: some 400,000 machines are headed
| to the Andean nation's poorest and remotest schools--about 6,000 schools in
| all. The first 25,000 of these machines are now being inventoried in a Lima
| warehouse and are poised for shipment to the interior.
`----
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/22041/
Astounded in Arahuay
,----[ Quote ]
| I recently returned from a grueling three-week stay in Peru, where I worked
| with the serious Ministry of Education team entrusted with the country’s
| 260-thousand laptop OLPC implementation.
|
| [...]
|
| As there are few roads in and around Arahuay, the children don’t communicate
| much outside of school — with anyone. The teachers started independently
| pointing out to Mr. Navarro that this was changing once the laptops arrived:
| kids started talking to each other outside of school hours over the mesh, and
| working together more while in school. They started talking a lot more with
| each other in person, and conquered their previously paralyzing fear of
| strangers.
`----
http://radian.org/notebook/astounded-in-arahuay
Related:
Laptop-Project Founder Faults Intel
,----[ Quote ]
| Oscar Becerra Tresierra, general director for educational technology at
| Peru's Ministry of Education, says that after the country recently agreed to
| buy 272,500 OLPC laptops for primary-school students, an Intel sales
| ^^^^^^^^^^^
| representative tried "to scare us" by claiming the machines and their power
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| adapters didn't work. "I don't feel very happy about it," he said. "We
| wouldn't like the project to fail because somebody is spreading gossip about
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| the machines that doesn't turn out to be true."
`----
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119948070480568405.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Peru signs up for 260,000 OLPC laptops
,----[ Quote ]
| The first countries to place mass orders for the rugged green-and-white
| laptops were Uruguay and Mongolia.
`----
http://www.news.com/Peru-signs-up-for-260%2C000-OLPC-laptops/2110-11746_3-6221061.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
In Peru, a Pint-Size Ticket to Learning
,----[ Quote ]
| But no competitor approaches the XO in innovation. It is hard drive-free,
| runs on the Linux operating system and stretches wireless networks
| with "mesh" technology that lets each computer in a village relay data to the
| others.
|
| [...]
|
| Negroponte said 150,000 more laptops will be shipped to such countries as
| Rwanda, Mongolia, Haiti and Afghanistan in early 2008 through "Give One, Get
| One," a U.S.-based promotion ending Dec. 31 in which participants buy a pair
| of laptops for $399 and donate one or both.
|
| The children of Arahuay prove One Laptop's transformative conceit: that you
| can revolutionize education and democratize the Internet by giving a simple,
| durable, power-stingy but feature-packed laptop to the world's poorest kids.
`----
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/29/AR2007122900720.html
Stallman survives Peruvian quake
,----[ Quote ]
| I read that a church collapsed on worshipers during mass; later I heard that
| the priest had been rescued. Believers surely attributed the rescue to the
| good will of a benevolent deity. They probably did not attribute the collapse
| to the ill will of an evil deity, but it would be equally logical. In the
| 18th century, an earthquake destroyed a cathedral in Lisbon, killing
| thousands of believers. Many in Europe began to doubt religion as a result.
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/118726
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