Square-Point
| Formation | March 2008 |
|---|---|
| Type | Non-profit |
Membership | 168 |
Official language | Multilingual |
Chairman | Abhishek Indoria |
Square-Point is a world-wide internet-based non-profit organization, which provides aspiring teenage programmers in third world countries a platform to develop their own programs and help the community with the children living in developing and third world countries by providing them resources to become familiar with the latest educational technologies and software and hardware with the help of one laptop per child. All of Square-Point's members are teenagers, and Square-Point does not accept membership requests from anyone above the age of 20.
Introduction
Square-Point was first created with the mission "To help children from third world countries to reach their potential." Square-Point aimed to program applications and software suites suitable for use by children around the world. Square-Point is led by Abhishek Indoria and Angelina Johnson. As of May 2010, Square-Point has over fifteen pilot projects in Third World countries. The organization's name was changed from Phoenix-Team to Square-Point in March 2010.
Joint Work with One Laptop Per Child
In June 2009, a statement from Square-Point indicated that it would program software for one laptop per child from then on. Square-Point has, since then, been independently developing its own software and implementing it for OLPC XO-1 as well as various other platforms.
Mission and Organisation Structure
Square-Point's mission statement reads "To provide free educational software to children living in third world countries where they cannot get access to proper technology and do not have proper resources to do so. The intended children's age is 5-16 years, for which Square-Point intends to provide enough resources to help them get educated in the field of computers."
Square-Point has its own internal organization structure. The chairman and the Chief Programmer Officer are responsible for major decisions, including structural and reinforcing tasks. "The Point team" is responsible for programming structure and solutions, while "The Phoenix-S" team is responsible for support tasks. The Phoenix-Square team is responsible for compatibility issues, public relations, beta testing, and recruiting members. The Phoenix-Squad helps in locating and supporting the pilot projects.
Current Projects
As referred to on Square-Point's website, the team is currently working on a few projects which claim to be:
- Codename Imperius (BoomingBang)
- An open source arcade worms clone for OLPC XO-1. First project of Square-Point.
- Phoenix Aura[1]
- An open source children-oriented operating system, which, according to Square-Point, "allows children to customize their machines according to themselves, which, in this case, is completely children-friendly and fun to learn."
- Spread-The-Sheet (STS)
- Open Source spreadsheet program prototype.
Deployments
Currently, several of Square-Point's members are deployed world-wide, most prominent of which are the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Latvia, Ghana, Brazil, Chile, Vietnam, Malaysia, Nepal, Burma, Sudan, Haiti, Spain, France, Paraguay and India.
Founders
Square-Point's founder and current chairman, Abhishek Indoria, was also founder of FOSSFY (Free & Open Source Software For Youth foundation) and co-founder of Eduvix, an organization providing open source educational solutions. Square-Point's Chief Programming Officer (CPO), Angelina Johnson, is a student living in Sussex, England. Johnson was co-founder of Eduvix.
Criticism
Square-Point has been criticised for its age limits on membership.
References
External links
- Official Website Archived 2009-11-20 at the Wayback Machine
- Phoenix-Aura
- Phoenix-Team ComputerSight 27.9.10 - Google
- BoomingBang OLPC NEWS Archived 2018-01-11 at the Wayback Machine
- BoomingBang website Archived 2009-09-17 at the Wayback Machine
- BoomingBang stub mention
This article "Square-Point" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
