One Laptop Per Child Organizes Game Jam

The non-profit group One Laptop Per Child is sponsoring a three-day “game jam“, intended to promote the development of more educational games to be distributed to developing nations. The event will run from June 8-10 in Needham, MA and will see hundreds of game developers, educators, writers, musician, and artists come together to create educational software for the XO laptop. The organization intends to distribute this laptop with the software to children in countries, such as Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil.
The developers will create all the software for the laptop and thus will be split into four seperate workgroups:

• Mesh Networking: Each XO has mesh networking capabilities that allow it to broadcast and connect to any laptop around it, allowing activities to easily be made collaborative.
• Camera: Each XO has a videoconferencing-quality camera embedded to the side of its display.
• Tablet Mode: The XO laptop has a distinct tablet mode where the screen can output high-resolution b/w graphics in sunlight conditions and features built in game-pad like buttons. This mode might lend itself to specific styles of play including one involving real-world activity beyond a confined space.
• Malleable Games for Learning: A key consideration of the OLPC effort is certainly learning. However, more importantly it is hoped that kids can use the laptops to create their own games and experiment deeply with learning games by having access to modify and change them as part of a learning process. This track will elicit games that speak to this ideal.

Sounds like a worthy cause and a great way to help provide an education to underprivileged children.