ATLAS | ATLAS Speaker Series: One Laptop Per Child

ATLAS Speaker Series: One Laptop Per Child

Laura Hosman and Bruce Baikie discuss leading, proposing and deploying development projects in developing nations and in underserved and impoverished regions. Issues include:

• Team-building and promoting initiative and accountability in students.
• Building project-based courses.
• Fundraising, grant writing & publicity.
• Opportunities to lead vs. facilitate.
• Planning for project sustainability, travel and deployment.
• Administrative and ethical challenges.

Laura Hosman is assistant professor of political science in the department of social sciences at Illinois Institute of Technology. Prior to IIT, Hosman held postdoctoral research fellow positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California. She graduated with a Ph.D. in political economy and public policy from USC.

Her current re-search focuses on the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in developing countries, particularly in terms of its potential effects on socio-cultural factors, human development and economic growth.

Read her blog at http://ict4dviewsfromthefield.wordpress.com. Her Web site detailing the current Haiti project is http://iitempoweringhaiti.org.

Bruce Baikie currently heads Green WiFi, a solar powered WiFi network technology company, and was a long-term member of Sun Microsystems' Telecom & NEP industry team. At Sun, Baikie developed the company's telecom solutions and partner alliances.

As CEO of Green WiFi, Baikie oversees the company's product design, production and implementation of solar powered ICT, many of which involve OLPC. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and advanced studies in International Business from the University of Wisconsin.

Baikie is guest lecturer on solar powered ICT4D at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. He is active with Engineers Without Borders and a mentor for students.

Presented Sept. 26, 2011, as part of the ATLAS Speaker Series, made possible by a generous donation by Idit Harel Caperton and Anat Harel.