Engineering change: Plugging Africa's kids in to $100 laptop

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Click here to read part two, "," and here to read part one, "." Khaled Hassounah stood at the front of a dusty classroom, 10 miles outside of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, pointing his index finger in the air. "Show me your power adapters," the 31-year-old Hassounah called out. Forty young hands shot up in response, hoisting pronged AC adapters skyward, black cords dangling to the floor. It was test deployment day for Hassounah and his team from the One Laptop Per Child project, and the students were interacting with their new laptops--or any laptop--for the very first time. For Hassounah, who recalled his time with the Nigerian students during a recent interview with CNET News.com, the day rewarded more than a year of hard work. "Beyond politics, logistics and planning, seeing real children hold the laptops was a breath of fresh air," he said. With his youth and soft-spoken manner, Hassounah (Hah-SOO-nah) might not seem like an internationally respected diplomat at first glance. Yet he directs efforts in the Middle East and Africa for Nicholas Negroponte's ambitious, tirelessly profiled OLPC, a nonprofit initiative to design, build, test and ship 15 million at-cost, child-friendly laptops to developing countries. For the last year, Hassounah has lived with a significant pay cut, long hours on the road, and up to three weeks a month away from his wife to help participating countries arrange to buy and distribute OLPC's specially designed XO Children's Machine. Despite the personal sacrifice, he'd gladly do the work for free. In fact, he almost did. Hassounah's relationship with OLPC began in November 2005, when Negroponte . At a $100 ballpark figure, XOs are cheap enough for governments of developing countries to subsidize, Hassounah said, and powerful enough to give kids a hands-on look at computers and the Internet. OLPC designed the XO to be customizable and interactive so kids can experiment and fix their own computer mistakes. The bright green and white casing is supposed to make the Linux-based XOs approachable for children, and fun. This design ethos extends to a "desktop" user interface where traditional icons are replaced by symbols, such as a drum to denote music, that Hassounah hopes all kids can understand. The hardware and software is meant to engage students at a hands-on level, Hassounah explained, teaching them to learn experientially rather than passively absorb information. "Given how much governments already spend on educational programs that do not yield the results they hope for," said Hassounah, "their participation in an initiative like OLPC becomes a no-brainer." Video: Laptops for the poor CNET Download.com's Jessica Dolcourt interviews Khaled Hassounah, a regional director for Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project. Speaking from CNET's studio, he explains why he hopes to place 2 million laptops into the hands of children in his region. Getting involved in the initiative was a no-brainer for Hassounah, as well. Negroponte's idea struck a chord with the German-born, Jordanian-raised engineer, who had long wanted to channel his expertise into alleviating the restricted educational and job opportunities blighting many Middle Eastern cities and towns, limitations he experienced personally before joining tech companies in the U.S. Always a dogged self-starter, Hassounah was programming in assembly code by age 10 and building radios by 14. He played with programming languages like other kids kicked around a ball. Because computer science wasn't offered at the University of Jordan, Hassounah majored in electrical engineering and groomed himself as a software engineer. After graduation, Hassounah worked for a small Jordanian-American software outsourcer. In 1999, he began a four-and-a-half month stint at Microsoft, having been recruited at an event hosted in Cyprus. Not a fan of the competitive culture at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters, he left to become the principal architect at another start-up, OneWord Software Solutions, where he met his wife, Azhar Hashem. The was perfect for Hassounah. Only months before, security software maker Symantec the instant-messaging security start-up where Hassounah had been a founding employee. Eager to help out, Hassounah contacted Negroponte, offering his tech skills and a deep understanding of Middle Eastern social customs and language. Here was "the first idea I saw that truly broke away from the traditional solutions, (which) have not really yielded the desired results for decades now," he said. OLPC was impressed enough by Hassounah's tech resume that the organization's officials turned his voluntary offer into a permanent job as director of OLPC's African and Middle Eastern operations. Tech guru and diplomat Now Hassounah finds himself traveling from his apartment in San Francisco, where he lives with Hashem, to OLPC's Boston headquarters, to Nigeria, Libya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Jordan, South Africa and back again. Hassounah's job makes him simultaneously a tech guru, project manager, diplomat, cultural coach and public relations contact. As a technical officer, he explains to interested countries how the initiative works, detailing the laptops' unconventional design and relating the governments' side of the bargain--like providing rural distribution and localized content. Other do-good techies Exiles' technology mesh-up Yahel Ben-David quit his Silicon Valley job to build a wireless network for banished Tibetans. Detecting landmines sooner Benetech uses radio waves to identify landmines for quicker, safer removal. Net gain: clean water FogQuest's polypropylene nets efficiently convert fog to clean water in arid environs. 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Related news Credits Reporter: Jessica Dolcourt Editors: Jim Kerstetter, Leslie Katz Copy editor: Emily Shurr Design: Andrew Ballagh Production: Jessica Kashiwabara /* Layout */ #story { width: 980px; } #specialWrapper { width: 980px; } #Sidebar_main { float: right; width: 324px; margin: 0 0 0 0; font-size: 90%; background-color: #fff; padding: 0; background-position: right -132px; background-repeat: no-repeat; display: inline; } #Sidebar1 { float: right; background-color: #fff; padding: 0; display: inline; } .Sidebar { float: right; width: 324px; margin: 10px 0 0 0; background-color: #eee; padding: 0; background-position: right -132px; background-repeat: no-repeat; display: inline; } #Content { width: 585px; float: left; margin: -55px 0 0 20px; display: inline; } /* misc */ #h1 { background-image: url(http://i.n.com.com/i/ne/p/2007/eng_change_day3_979x182.jpg); background-position: left top; width: 979px; height: 182px; margin: 0; } #eye { padding:4px 0px 10px 20px; float:left; color: #fff; font-size: .8em; } #eye a:link {color:#fff; text-decoration:none;} #eye a:hover {color:#fff; text-decoration:underline;} #eye a:visited {color:#fff;text-decoration:none;} #button { padding: 0px 0 10px 0; font-size: .9em; } /* */ #Content h2 { margin: 0; padding-bottom: 0; font-size: 1.5em; } #Content p { margin: 0 0 19px 0; } /* #Content p { margin: 0 0 19px 0; clear: both;} */ #datetop { color: #666; font-size: .8em; display: block; padding: 5px 0 10px 0; } .datestamp { color: #666; font-size: .8em; display: block; } /* */ .Sidebar h3 { background-color: #5b4b3c; margin: 0; padding: 5px 10px; color: #fff; font-size: 1.3em; text-transform: none; } .Sidebar p, .Sidebar ul { color: #333; margin: 3px 10px 15px 10px; } .datestamp_side { color: #666; font-size: .8em; display: block; } #relatedVideo { margin: 0 0 0 0; padding-bottom: 10px; } .Side_img { padding-top: 10px; } .Sidebar li { clear: both; } .contentSubhed { width: 100%; border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa; color: #666; font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; margin: 15px 0; background-repeat: no-repeat; height: 20px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; text-transform: none; } #jumpLinks { margin: 10px 0; } NEWS.COM SPECIAL REPORT: Engineering change (continued from previous page) As diplomat and education advocate, he must smoothly handle political sensitivities while convincing leaders of the program's economic benefits. Once a president or prime minister shows interest, Hassounah said, working out the details becomes a whole lot easier. "Software is a political decision," he remarked. Hassounah's position puts him in personal contact with presidents and ministers, but "the children's excitement about the laptops and the opportunities they are provided are far more interesting and significant" than an international who's-who, he insisted. Credit: Azhar Hashem Khaled Hassounah Hashem has seen her husband go from start-ups to diplomacy. On a recent trip to Rwanda, she and Hassounah, along with Negroponte, were among 12 people invited to a dinner with the country's president, Paul Kagame. Hashem was on a break from her MBA program at the Haas Business School at the University of California at Berkeley, which provided a rare opportunity to watch her husband sell the laptop program. "It was seeing the president's eyes light up," Hashem said of the moment she said she truly understood Hassounah's impact, "and after the (country's) long, tumultuous history, signing on (to the project) for the next five years...even though the country has very limited means." And Hassounah? "He just liked that the president 'got it'." During his involvement with OLPC, Hassounah has repeated the refrain that the laptops aren't so much about connecting kids to the Internet as they are about providing a gateway to self-education. Not everyone agrees, of course, and Negroponte's project has been publicly flamed by technologists and educators. have both criticized OLPC prototypes' limited software capacity and inability to run powerful proprietary programs. On the other hand, design engineers have questioned the programs' development--is this really the correct application of education theory and the appropriate solution to narrowing the digital divide? Hassounah's stalwart support for the little-laptop-that-could might sound like an OLPC-issued script. Arjun Moorthy, however, who became close with Hassounah when the two worked together at IMlogic, said his friend believes in what he's doing. "He has two passions: one is building gadgets. The other thing he wanted to do was make the world a better place. Idealistic, but he believed it," Moorthy said. Leaning into the couch at his favorite San Francisco coffee shop, Hassounah said he feels lucky to have left Jordan at a time when cutting-edge tech companies were almost unheard of, and the few that existed were joint ventures developing software for American markets. Had he not chosen to supplement his electrical engineering education, he said, "I'd still be in Jordan at a job paying $300 a month." But Hassounah isn't trying to make an example of Jordan, which has enjoyed much more Internet start-up activity in the last few years. "It's about being given the basic ability to learn, continuously acquiring (skills) in life," know-how he had to gain on his own. "I consider myself (lucky) that I was able to achieve what I wanted," he said. "I just didn't think it was fair for people not to be able to achieve all their dreams." His OLPC work, at its core, really is about setting up the groundwork to make that possible. Hassounah's wife recalled watching her normally solemn husband--at the Galadima school--chasing gleefully shrieking kids, many of whom had never seen a lightbulb, as they elbowed for control over two demonstration laptops. With both wireless antennae raised, the XOs resemble cartoon bugs in the center of the swarm--and the usually straight-faced Hassounah was the king bee. "He became excited by their excitement," she said. "He was on his knees in the classroom." With the kids, "his walls are down and his inhibitions are down." That's the kind of transformation Hassounah is striving to enable. "As a software developer, you think the biggest problem in the world is what the object model of your application looks like," he said. "And when you go into Nigeria, in the capital, where children have no textbooks, you realize there are much bigger problems." Other do-good techies Exiles' technology mesh-up Yahel Ben-David quit his Silicon Valley job to build a wireless network for banished Tibetans. Detecting landmines sooner Benetech uses radio waves to identify landmines for quicker, safer removal. Net gain: clean water FogQuest's polypropylene nets efficiently convert fog to clean water in arid environs. On-point HIV consulting Portable technology by PointCare tests the blood count in rural HIV/AIDS patients. Changing lives through words Former Microsoft exec John Wood teams with developing nations to build schools, libraries. Energy for the powerless Student's new business model brings affordable electricity to rural Brazil. Loans, a blink away Biometric identification enables microfinance banking options to the illiterate poor. Illuminated grains feed poor Light technology from start-up Dr. Seed boosts grain production to feed China's hungry. Stoves save wood and lives Researcher Christina Galitsky helped design low-fuel cookstoves in war-ravaged Darfur.