Hi All,

After waiting for a long time to get our hands on one we had an
opportunity to work with an OLPC (One Laptop per Child or AKA $100
laptop) recently and did a POC to check if Sahana would work on it.
Joseph from LSF did the POC and attached are some of the pictures of
Sahana on the OLPC. There is still some work to do but you can get the idea.

Generally compared to other low-cost devices I think the OLPC is a great
disaster response tool for the following reasons:

1) The system is designed to be rugged and last in a 3rd world country
and thus should be able to handle the rugged environment of a disaster
environment

2) If there is no electricity or power in the field you can always crank
it or pull a cord to generate electricity for the device which has a
very low power consumption.

3) There are no moving parts (no harddisk) making it more reliable and
shock resistant. The keyboard is plasticky, but it is water resistant.

4) It has inbuilt support for mesh networks which are generally consider
the future of dynamic collaboration in emergency management, when
traditional telecoms infrastructures fail for communication. This is the
kind of vision we have for Sahana mobile.

5) Far more lightweight and mobile than laptop, but far more feature
rich and usable than a mobile phone or PDA in the field.

6) In-build camera to take pictures or for video conferencing on the
mesh if required.

So apart from the kiddish looks, IMO this device is far better than
putting a laptop, PDA or any other less rugged low cost PC into the
field during a disaster and if it does become a success it will be
sufficiently pervasive to already be present and familiar to the
affected people (as it's purpose is to bridge the digital divide)

What do you think?


--
Chamindra de Silva
http://chamindra.googlepages.com