OLPC CTO - A Dream Job

Here's an article on Mary Lou Jepson, CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project. I admire those who have helped turn this project into reality. It takes determination and vision to ward off attractive but useless free (as in beer) offers from proprietary operating systems vendors. Those heading the OLPC project must be human-centered and down-to-earth. I found Mary Lou's take on academic credentials (specifically, her Ph.D.) to exemplify the way many must think who are involved in this project. She says -

"It’s a union card; that’s all it is. Just get the stupid union card. So that’s what I did."

And now she's traveling the world, working on a project that directly helps bridge the global digital divide. Kudos to Mary Lou, all other OLPC contributors, and especially all FLOSS developers who have provided the software these machines will run.

Visit Planet OLPC to meet others helping make cyberspace a better place. The site also has a RSS feed to subscribe to.