[socal-piggies] Code For A Cause event -- plea for volunteers

[Grig Gheorghiu]

David asked me to forward his message to the list again, in the hope
that he'll get some volunteers for the office hours during the week of
April 14-18. If you attended our last meeting at Disney, David talked
about their event there too. 

Titus and I will be there this Saturday April 12 to give some
presentations on Python and the OLPC programming/build environment.

David and his colleagues at USC will also have an IRC channel set up
for people who can donate some of their time for answering questions
remotely.

If you can help with anything at all, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Grig

--- David Hodge <dhodge at usc.edu> wrote:

> ACM and Free Culture USC have partnered up and are hard at work
> preparing
> for an upcoming "Code for a Cause" programming event that is going to
> take
> place at USC in about a month. I think that given your experience
> with
> python and involvement in open-source software you might find it
> interesting.
> 
> The last "Code for a Cause event", called "SS12" had students develop
> innovative, empowering software projects for disabled persons. This
> upcoming
> event will focus on the theory and the technology behind open-source
> software and the emerging "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) platform. In
> case
> you have not heard about the OLPC, it is the organization making  the
> famed
> "$100 laptop" that is being sent to the world's poorest children to
> give
> them a chance at education. The OLPC's "XO" laptop is itself based on
> open-source software and is set up to easily allow people to make
> software
> for it. As it turns out, python is the primary development language
> for this
> platform.
> 
> Like in the SS12 event, we will attract students ranging from
> freshmen
> undergraduates all the way through Ph.D candidates and put them in
> mixed
> teams of about five people. After an in-depth introduction to the
> OLPC
> platform and a kickoff ceremony, student teams will be challenged
> over a
> week-long period to develop open-source software for the OLPC
> platform.
> Teams will be given guidelines for their projects, but be left enough
> discretion to leverage their own creativity to produce unique
> solutions.
> Software experts and OLPC hardware will be made available during
> office-hours throughout the week of the event. At the end of the
> week,
> students will submit their projects and receive prizes for their work
> at an
> awards ceremony. The goal of this event is to raise awareness for
> open-source software, to promote the OLPC platform, and to be
> educational
> and fun for all participants.
> 
> We will have an orientation session on Wednesday April 9. The actual
> competition will start with a kickoff event and full day of coding on
> April
> 12. The "Office Hours" where students can test their code on actual
> XO
> laptops will take place for a few hours a day from April 13 to April
> 19.
> 
> While our planning for this event is moving along well, we thought
> you might
> be able to offer us some additional help. Specifically, we're looking
> for a
> few python experts to have at the competition. Is there any way you
> could
> advertise this to fellow python experts through the "socal piggies"
> or other
> means? We'd love to have an expert present some python basics to
> students on
> April 12. Additionally we're hoping an expert or two could be
> available at
> each of the hours "office hours" session in the days that follow. I
> realize
> that this would be a lot to ask of one person, so we're hoping to get
> enough
> interest to divide it up well.
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> 
> - David Hodge
> 
> P.S.
> 
> While the web site for this new event is under construction, you can
> visit
> http://ss12.info to learn more about our last event.
> 
> And, to learn more about the OLPC, visit http://laptop.org.