OLPC names new president, COO

by Agam Shah

May 4, 2008 —

The One Laptop Per Child Project
appointed a new president and chief operating officer on Friday to run daily
operations at the nonprofit effort, sending a signal that it could be recovering
from the loss of top personnel over the past few months.

Charles Kane will move from the part-time role as chief financial officer to
oversee the organization's operational matters and distribution of the XO laptop
on a day-to-day basis. Kane will provide OLPC the leadership needed to deliver
on its commitments to partners and governments, said Nicholas Negroponte in
a statement.

Negroponte will "focus on fund-raising and promoting the project to governments
worldwide," OLPC said.

The new appointment could curb damage caused by the loss of important personnel
over the past few months. In January, OLPC lost Chief Technology Officer Mary
Lou Jepsen, who started an organization to commercialize parts of OLPC's technology,
including the screen and battery. In February, Director of Security Architecture
Ivan Krstic resigned to protest the organization's restructuring and "radical"
change in goals.

Last month, Walter Bender, the president of software and content, quit to promote
the use of open-source software in the face of OLPC's goal to load Windows XP
on the laptop. Bender was said to be running the day-to-day operations of OLPC
while Negroponte focused on fundraising and promotion of the project.

OLPC recently restructured into four departments -- development, technology,
deployment and learning -- and the organization is now focusing on making the
XO laptop more appealing to customers.

The organization is in negotiations with Microsoft to load Windows on dual-boot
versions of the XO laptop, which is being marketed as a learning tool for children
in developing countries. In an open letter, Negroponte criticized the development
of Sugar, XO's user interface, and asked developers to stop bickering, unite
and jointly develop a Windows user interface to make XO laptops more appealing
to customers.

The letter drew anger from open-source developers writing applications for
the Linux-based laptop, who called Negroponte's vision "vague" and
"demoralizing" for the future of Sugar.

Negroponte needs to clarify his vision to deliver a more sophisticated product,
Krstic
wrote in an April blog entry.

If Sugar is a problem, Negroponte has no one but himself to blame, Krstic said.
"Nicholas' recent claim of Sugar growing amorphously because it 'didn't
have a software architect who did it in a crisp way' is similarly muddy: convincing
him of the need for an architect is a battle Walter and I fought for months
without success," Krstic wrote.

Negroponte offered Krstic the spot of chief software architect, which was rescinded
several weeks later "for reasons he refused to explain to anyone,"
Krstic wrote.

IDG News Service