This Thursday at Change, UW grad student Breona Gutschmidt will presenting on her work on One Laptop Per Child.
In 2009, the One Laptop Per Child organization (www.laptop.org), founded by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT?s Media Lab, ran a pilot program called OLPCorps. The intention was to provide funds and 100 of the group?s iconic green and white XO laptops to university student teams partnering with established NGOs in order to deploy the computers in rural African locations. University of Washington graduate student Breona Gutschmidt wrote one of the 30 winning proposals, and, partnering with the East African Center for Women and Children (EAC), headed up a team of graduate students to launch the XO laptops at the Vutakaka Junior School in Takaungu, Kenya, this past summer. She?ll give an overview of the project, including highlights, challenges and assessment, and bring a couple of XO laptops to show-and-tell. Breona Gutschmidt has spent the last several years working in the technology and education field and is currently pursing an MEd in Educational Communication and Technology at UW?s College of Education. Among other projects, she has written and edited multimedia curriculum for an educational software company called Apex Learning, and she spent several months in Takaungu, Kenya in 2004 implementing a youth and technology project for 12-18 year-olds. She has a B.A. in creative writing and has worked as a writer and editor at companies including Microsoft, the Seattle Art Museum and the University of Washington. Breona enjoys exploring questions of how new software and hardware will be implemented and developing curriculum tools for new and emerging technologies. She is particularly interested in the intersections between education, technology and creative expression and education, technology and health. What: Breona Gutschmidt on One Laptop Per Child When: Thursday, January 27 at Noon Where: UW, Paul Allen Center, Room 203
