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TR: So from your perspective, this could still be a success even if you stopped manufacturing laptops and the technology found its way into a dozen different laptops ...
WB: Yep. But I think it's premature to do that. And the reason is quite simple: unless we keep the pressure on, the prices are going to go up, the efficiencies are going to go down, and we're going to be right back to the same "bigger, faster" model. We've got to keep the pressure on and keep the industry honest until we've really proven that this other way is viable. Because otherwise, next year's Intel machine will be more expensive and more power hungry, and that's not going to serve the needs of these kids.
TR: Okay, I have to say, I've played with the laptop, and it seems slow.
WB: Well, it's certainly slow compared to the laptop you carry around. But the metric you have to measure things by is not Grand Theft Auto III. The metric you want to measure things by is learning. The word processor keeps up with my typing. The video camera works just fine. The music programs work just fine. It's a perfectly adequate platform for kids for learning. Every decision we make is, How does this enhance the learning? And the bottom line is, if you can't turn it on since you can't power it, a fast processor doesn't do you very much good.
TR: There's also the question of whether laptops are really what governments should be sinking resources into.
WB: The way Nicholas [Negroponte] likes to put it is, substitute the word "education" for "laptop." And then ask, "Should we be giving these kids education?" "Nah, they don't need education! Education is a luxury. Why should we give them education?" What we're advocating is that the laptop is the most efficient way we know of of giving them an opportunity for real learning. It's not that we're interested in laptops; we're interested in learning. And it turns out that almost 50 years of research by people like [computer scientist and educational theorist] Seymour Papert has demonstrated that computation is a wonderful thing to think with. It's powerful stuff. And it's going to change these kids' lives dramatically for the better.
Charles Kane thinks industry partnerships will boost the laptop's marketability.
The philanthropic effort dubbed the $100 Laptop has not met its grand initial goals. But its first deployment, in Peru, may turn skeptics into believers.
The cofounder of MIT's Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, wants to make $100 laptops available to poor children throughout the world. The next few months will be critical in determining whether the One Laptop per Child project succeeds.
Education is the key for everything
The one laptop project is great. I hope I can donate English training software, currently I am working on a one million computers for one million children of western China project. Any thing I make that benefits the world is free. Intel needs more corporate social responsibility training at the highest levels, directors and share holders.
The OLPC program just suffered another major set back here in Brazil. Intel's local partner was able to offer educational laptops as low as US$ 300,00 to the federal educational program. What's really wrong in this OLPC is the Betamax marketing strategy they're failing to implement. This won't be a world standard for anything, unless they allow it to be something good for the world. No matter what. Poor business men in Africa need laptops as much as sailors in Amazonia. Why digital educate only the children? Let people build the laptop paying a small royalty. And wait for the upgrades.
Mr. Bender mentions, “We need an economist to help us figure this one out.”
Several such experts on the economics of the poor on the OLPC board may help. One such resource could be 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus (microloans). His new book out on social business, “Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism” was recently featured on public TV.
See the Charlie Rose PBS interview: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1986204406774837194
"Technology will solve problems" = Utopian thinking
For about a century now, naive 1st world idealists have been trying to help 3rd world countries by bringing them technology.
The thinking always went along the lines of "If we can only bring them some 'railways', many of their problems will be solved, and then they will be able to take care of themselves."
As time has gone by, the 'railways' in this scheme have been changed to 'telephone lines', 'highways', 'schools', 'hospitals'...and lately to the 'Internet', 'cell phones'...and now to 'laptops'.
What people miss is this: most Americans in the 1950s had a much better quality of life, than most 3rd worlders have today. And the America of the '50s had a lot less technology than the 3rd world has today.
The idealists are missing the 'cause and effect' connection here. It is not the technology that makes a society advanced. It is its values. The technology development is only the result, or the effect, of good civilizational values.
And if you put this in reverse: you can deliver a lot of technology to a bantustan...it will still remain a bantustan.
OLPC should show us the vision
The most important point of the OLPC project should be to provide the world with a method of learning using exclusively XO computers. Although the word "$100 laptop" has some impact to our computer industry, the cost itself is a secondary issue. Now the time for Prof. Seymour Papert and his successors to show their vision to push OLPC up to the next stage.
Intel do themselves no favours
by trying to be too clever legally - the 'sales people aren't company officers defence' is too shabby for words.
Whatever your views on the OLPC one cannot question the organisations motivation and vision; more than can be said of the likes of Intel and others involved in spoiling manoeuvres.
I have work with communication development and served as president of Panaftel. I would like to discuss method and criterion for selecting countries to participate in the one laptop for child. A country Liberia in its progressive development would welcome this project one lap top.Please contact me for more input and contact information.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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Wildgorilla
4 Comments
N. Negroponte & OLPC team are the greatest educators in history
N. Negroponte and his OLPC team will go down in history as the greatest educators of all time. My suggestion to the OLPC is to get out of the computer business and run it as an educational organization managing licenses, because the creative part of the OLPC is almost done: creating a new market and profit center that giant corporations can fight over, drop prices, & improve the OLPC using the country model OLPC has created.
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gabrielg01
450 Comments
Re: N. Negroponte & OLPC team are the greatest educators in history
..."the greatest educators of all time"...aren't you exaggerating a little bit? :))
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