OLPC focuses, lays off staff

Posted on January 7th, 2009 by metasj.
Categories: Uncategorized.

This hurts.  It is a gray week in Cambridge.  We are still busily planning for the upcoming XOCamp, and the bulk of our contributors have always been volunteers.  But that doesn’t lessen the impact of losing teammates…

There remains a lot to be said about our targets for the coming two years, and I will work through the list over the weekend, including both our active goals [book reader features, $0 laptops for target communities] and the projects that now need better community maintainers [server development, interface development, activity integration, testing & help-lines].

I am working on a job and bounty listings page for people with open jobs related to OLPC and Sugar deployments, and to other education projects.  Please post your own leads here as you have them  (hat-tip to Bryan Berry and OLE Nepal for being the first).

4 comments.

Benjamin Mako Hill

Comment on January 7th, 2009.

Ugh. That sounds really rough.

EthanZ

Comment on January 7th, 2009.

Really sorry to hear, SJ. This is not going to be an easy climate for any nonprofit tech projects.

SJ

Comment on January 8th, 2009.

Thanks for the notes. I am still here, but this is definitely going to be a hard year.

Most of the office spent the evening at the pub, hashing through opportunities and options; a great atmosphere despite everything.

» A $20 Laptop? I&D Blog

Pingback on February 3rd, 2009.

[...] There was quite a bit of discussion here at Berkman recently when it was announced that OLPC would lay off half of its staff, and force those that remained to take pay cuts. The Indian government also [...]

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