Motivation

OLPC Question:

Over the next week (before the Kigali Workshop), we'd like you to discuss why you joined OLPCorps. Feel free to discuss your past experience in your society, other societies, your experience with education, technology, and any other topic you find relevant.


(Eli) Honestly we didn't think about it that much, we just had the opportunity and we took it. There wasn't a long philosophical debate like there usually is between James and myself. We saw that the application was due soon, we talked about it, and called Seth, and started working on the application. We got serious really fast once we listened in on the first conference call and saw that we might actually have a shot at winning the grant.

(James) I'm doing this because it's awesome. Really, I'm doing it because I haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to use my skills to give back before in my life, and this was a great chance to do so. Also, it was a great chance to go on an adventure that will help people.

We had a lot of discussions about our motivations, and while we realized that while our motivations were good, and they should be positive, it is more important that projects get done. Quibbling over trying to adhere exactly to someone else's ideology is unproductive and impossible. What we decided to do is just focus on the project and put all our thoughts and energy into accomplishing the task at hand while still having fun.

We think that we've accomplished those planning goals - all that's left (a gross understatement :P) is to implement our plan! We'll be updating soon with details on that.