What Happened to the Mexican Scholar Project?

derwisch writes "In an older article on this site it was stated that Mexico's schools were about to see 140000 computers with Linux installed on top of them. As the original information site has 404'ed, I would like to know if anything became of this project. "

A search on Google...

[MS]

A quick search on Google [goolge.com] gave me a few useful pointers:

• Mexican Schools Embrace Linux by Leander Kahney (WIRED) [wired.com]
• Scholar Net [nuclecu.unam.mx]

Below is Arturo Espinosa Aldama's complete post.

Greetings, beloved GNOME users and developers.

I work as the proyect leader of the "Scholar Net", a program that aims to bring computers and the net to every elementary and mid-level school in Mexico. We expect to install from 20 to 35 thousand labs per year to a total of 140,000 centers in the next five years.

Due to matters of cost, reliability and configurability, we plan to use GNU/Linux to replace the propietary server options and, now thanks to GNOME, the propietary desktop application options.

We will develop GNOME to a point where we can get a useful and friendly enough desktop for the elementary and high school student. There are some aspects of GNOME, such as uniformity, spanish translation, bug fixing and application development which we will address to achieve this.

At an average of 20 users per machine, and being all of them school children and teachers, GNU/Linux will become, at the long term, a major influence in Mexico. In the short term, GNOME will get an additional impulse from us and those who will contribute following our guidelines, and GNU/Linux will prove to be a real-world option for the end user.

For further information and details on the Scholar Net and, specially for GNOME developers, on how to contribute to GNOME for us to arrive to deployment stage, please contact Arturo Espinosa .

Arturo Espinosa Aldama
Proyect Leader
Academic Services Coordination
National Autonomous University of Mexico

The text above may be copied in any way provided that it stays with this parragraph and unmodified.

Hope this helps
:-)
ms

UNAM On Strike...

[LinuxTek]

Well, I live in Mexico, and I haven't heard anything about this project yet, but that doesn't surpise me.

There are two things that may make this project close/take a while. One, the National Autonomus University of Mexico (UNAM) has been on strike since March of 1999, meaning that for almost ten months, this univeristy hasn't seen any activity. (and you wander why we're a third-world country)

The second one (and the one that I hate the most) is that since the Project Leader is oriented towards GNOME, they're waiting until GNOME is stable AND translated to spanish. I think he's being parcial about this. If he went with KDE, he could have started a long time ago. This is one example where the KDE vs. GNOME war (conflict) is hurting the Linux community.

Seeya!

Re: First post to discuss sex with animals!

[applegirlie]

Okay, I posted the URL for this article to a mailing list I'm on, thinking it'd evoke a MATURE response and start a discussion regarding just what kind of stuff is generally posted to /. (since this isn't it) Woo nelly! Did I misjudge that one or what! So yes, the marks from my public (because it makes some people feel better to let everyone know what they say, rather than directing the mail to the individual it concerns) flogging are still stinging. ;p Just thought I'd share.

ideas.....

[Tchémá]

many spanish readers will see this, so i'll write the msg in spanish, then in english...


recuerdo haber leido de este programa hace como un año, hasta le mande un correo al encargado (arturo espinosa aldama?). nunca recibi informacion o respuesta. me perecia una excelente idea (y aun me parece). estoy de acuerdo con jd de que es un excelente oportunidad para mexico y seria una pena gastarla. yo seria de la opinion que aun si la UNAM ni el govierno quiere ayudar, pues que nosotros los mexicanos lo agamos. una idea tonta, lo se, pero si es posible.

pregunta, alguien esta interesado en traducir linux a nahuatl? si estan mandeme un correo (quitale el SANS_SPAM antes).

a proposito, aqui hay un sito con informacion sobre linux en mexico:

http://www.linux.org.mx/


i remember reading about this about a year ago, i even wrote to the guy who was in charge, but i never got a reply or info. i do agree with jd that it's a great opportunity for all involved to better the standing of mexico and it would be a shame to waste. i think that if we keep on waiting for the goverment or the UNAM to do something about it we might end up dissapointed. perhaps it's time some of us did something about it. i know it's a stupid idea, but stranger things have happened.

just my two centavos :-{)

-------------------------
"for ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall set you free." - john 8:32

"'what is truth?' said jesting pilate, and
would not stay for an answer" - francis bacon

State of Mexican government and economy

[Signail11]

I don't think this really needs saying, as anyone who as been keeping tabs on world news should know this already, but the Mexican government has practically lost legitmacy in terms of being able to exert real control over areas of the country far from the centralized administration in Mexico City. The economy has not grown for the past several years and the unemployment rate *in the city* is upwards of 30% even by the generous official calculations. It is estimated that by any reasonable standard of poverty/living wage allotments, less 40% of people are functionally employed. Literacy among youth, especially rural youth, is at astonishingly low levels. Honestly, I don't think they're in much of a position to roll out ~140,000 computers or worry about which distro/window manager to use.

Here are some facts on mexico

[u&t]

Saying mexico is in big trouble is wrong.
GDP has been up 5 % each year since 97.
only 10 % of GDP is public spending.
26 % of public spending goes to education.

Yes mexico is a very poor country.
It was hit extremly hard by the asian
crisis but since then the economy has been
quite stable. Education is low and child
mortality is high.

Now when both political and economical
situations are reasonably stable you can
expect lots of money to flow into mexico,
especially from the US where skilled cheap
labour is hard to find and the educational
system sucks.

What all this has to do with gnome is that
things will happen but don't expect them to
happen soon.

I don't know if anything -has- come of it...

[jd]

...but I -do- know that it's Mexico's next best chance of going from a patch of nowhere to being a world leader and a potential next-generation superpower.

(I'm serious! As computers become more and more significant in the global economy, who controls the computers controls the world. And if Mexico can become even moderately computer-literate with an advanced OS such as Linux, it can waltz past those nations weighted down with Windows millstones round their necks.)

If Mexico wants to pick itself up, and regain pride in itself, it almost -has- to adopt Linux. As it is, Mexico's only really known for what other countries have copied or taken.

I'm not suggesting Mexico takes on the rest of the world, or anything, but if it doesn't leapfrog the "industrial nations", what's left of the country simply won't survive. There's no future in playing catch-up, with most of the resources needed drying up and destroying the environment.