Do you remember your family’s first computer? Were you early adopters with an Apple IIe? Or did you have a Gateway 2000 (back when 2000 was futuristic) that came with a free month of AOL? Was it the original Macintosh or a later Performa model? If you remember that computer better than you remember your first grade teacher, today’s job will be right up your alley. One Laptop Per Child is a non-profit organization that was founded by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab to offer children across the world educational opportunities through laptop ownership. Based on 5 Core Principles of Child Ownership, Low Ages, Saturation, Connection, and Free and Open Source, OLPC is looking to change millions of lives by allowing children to explore, experiment, and express themselves.
OLPC’s original goal was to create a $100 laptop that could be purchased and then donated, but somewhere along the way it became a $200 laptop. OLPC has actually put together a pretty incredible piece of hardware at this price point. The point of the project isn’t to make cheap laptops, so you can’t just buy one, but you can donate one.
Don’t understand why giving children in developing countries a laptop is so important? Check out Our Stories – a collection of experiences from children who have already started using OLPC computers. If you want a laugh, read Valleywag’s satire on Our Stories. Since OLPC is such a high tech project, it’s received a ton of online press. There are also some great web resources for more information about OLPC beyond their own site, Laptop.org. We especially recommend that you read OLPC’s Wiki and the Wikipedia entry on the $100 Laptop.
Last week I got an e-mail from OLPC’s Internship Coordinator, Nia Lewis, about some new internship offerings. Since we’ve already featured OLPC’s entry level jobs on One Day, One Job, I told her that I’d let you all know about their internships ASAP. Right now they’re looking for international interns to be deployed to Uruguay and Peru this Summer. You can find the entire internship description here. They’re also looking for Administrative and Engineering interns at their Cambridge, MA office, but they don’t have the postings ready yet. If you’re interested in those internships, you can apply by sending a cover letter and resume to nia@laptop.org. It appears that all of OLPC’s internships are unpaid. There’s also a chance that OLPC will take interns through Google Summer of Code, but they are still waiting to hear back from Google on that front.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Remember your first computer? What was it? Tell us in the comments.
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Tags: administrative, Cambridge, education, engineering, information technology, international, Internships, outreach, Peru, software development, unpaid, Uruguay
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