I will try to give you the World Computer Exchange answer to your 5 questions.
1. I am not aware of any such used computer life time study. We are under 3 years old and East West Educational Development did not do such a study (nor has anyone related to US schools). I have heard the stories of 10th generation computers in schools in India. We (with the help of International Technologies Group at Harvard's Berkman Center) are beginning such a study of use and impact. Included in this study are all schools that have and will receive computers from WCE. Each of our partners develop a sustainable implementation plan that explains how the computers will be maintained. These are posted on our website. In many of the countries where we ship, we are helping to involve universities to have their computer science students help with computer maintenance (and their education school help with teacher training). 2 & 4. We ship with donated MandrakeSoft Linux and have recently heard from Sun Microsystems about a donation of StarOffice for our partners and the schools that they recruit in Latin America. After two years of requests, we have just heard from Microsoft about their willingness in Africa to let our individual and corporate donors leave the Windows OS on their computers so that the schools and centres can use it. In many of the countries where we are working we are involving a local university in the role of helping to develop, adapt, and share local content. So our schools have more and more software options. We have found that in almost all of our shipments, we have hit our target of 90% of the computers arriving in immediately working order. In a couple of cases, we have sent troubleshooters to solve some problems to get well over 90% working. In one of our early loss-leader pilots, our partners reported far less than the 90% but did not want our troubleshooters to visit. 3. Our partners and the schools that they recruit do not feel they have gotten our donated computers the easy way. They have to complete a survey, agreement letter, and an implementation plan that responds to 25 questions on transparancy, sustainability, and scalability including issues of maintenance, connectivity, and use. They have to work to find most of the funds to cover our sourcing and administrative costs as well as the direct shipping costs. The impact reported by our partners in their post-delivery reports (6 months after the container arrives) have mostly been encouraging and are posted on our website. The least expensive new computers seem to be in the area of $200 (India) for far less computer or in the area of $350 (Viet Nam) for somewhat less computer than we source for between $35 and $57.50 each computer set. Neither of these options is available in most of the countries where we deliver used, tested, and working computers. 5. We appreciate tough questions as this helps to sharpen our ability and capacity. We are working to develop a transparent, sustainable, and scalable model. We welcome your criticisms, ideas, and help. Best wishes, Timothy Anderson Frederick Noronha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What is really needed is a radical review not just of how we compute, > but how we consume the world's resources, and what solutions are offered > to whom. > > Some questions: > > 1. Has any study been done as to the impact of how long such computers > actually serve in Third World locations? Are these being used > effectively? Given the way hardware is made incompatible with that > produced just two to three years back, aren't we fighting an uphill > battle? How do we ensure computers are kept in a state of fair > maintenance? > > 2. What is the impact of software going the bloatware way, which makes > perfectly usable computers turn to junk due to the market-driven > planned-obsolence model? This is surely true of Windows, and this is > also getting to be increasingly true of the major distros of GNU/Linux > (Red Hat/Mandrake), where we are getting big and bigger packages, in the > name of keeping up in the race. Is someone thinking about this? Apart > from the RULE project in Italy, one has not heard of building, say a > KDE-Lite, for us poor cousins out here. (For that matter, it would serve > everyone, and make fewer computers turn to 'junk' in the first place.) > > 3. What is the impact on recipients in the Third World? Is there no > better and more sustainable way of getting access to PCs? Are such > gift-horses appreciated well, or simply abused and misused by > recipients, who feel they've got the PCs in an easy way anyway? > > 4. Is this only a question of hardware, or are other issues like > software and syllabi equally important? In India, quite some schools > have Microsoft-only syllabi. What are the long-term implications of > this? > > 5. Finally, are we willing to ask inconvenient questions, or just take > the easy way out and swim with the tide? > > No offence meant... Just that we could go ahead if we asked the tough > questions. FN > ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
