SJ suggested that I attend a conference in Taipei, Taiwan, and the conference organizers have generously offered to sponsor my trip. Asus will be presenting their EEEpc and their plans for creating a developer program around the platform. We really need to make sure that we're not duplicating effort across the platforms, and that the software and content used when going into schools is compatible.

Using Open Source, we, an education-focused non-profit, and Asus, a for-profit laptop manufacturer, should be able to collaborate and make sure that the children are not locked into particular bubbles of innovation. As we move forward, we can hope that the specs we need for an educational laptop will become so common that we need only specify generation 2 and the manufacturers will each have half a dozen options available to choose from.

I'll be gone for 10 days total, with 3.5 days (or so) available for recovering from jet-lag, meetings with local OLPC-ers, and maybe a bit of touring around the city. If you've got a suggestion for someone I should be meeting, or something I should be seeing, in Taipei, let me know.