On 10/9/07, Venkat Mangudi wrote: > Well, it makes sense to me that you would first want to help these > people make a living before equipping with a laptop. > > What parts did not make sense to you? Just curious.
basically the parts where the writer quotes the UN to make comparisons which are not really valid. for instance: "computers can't solve the problems of a place where almost half a billion people live on less than $1 a day, and many lack clean drinking water. ". The above is a UN goal, i dont see why OLPC has to meet that goal ? OLPC aims to provide better educational tools, at low cost. If it ends up helping someone, well, thats just a bonus. Then the writer himself claims how much technology has changed his life, yet he doesnt seem to think it can change someone elses, so they dont need to have it. For many years basic communications infrastructure (telephony, cellular) was heavily taxed and regulated by governments in africa (and in india) in the belief that these are luxury items used only by a few privileged and thus need not be made accessible to anyone else. Its the same idea at work here. The other part that the UNESCO quote mentions is provision of blackboard, chalk, teachers etc. There are plenty of UN /other NGOs doing just that with not much success. One factor being, the mode of funding is project based - fixed duration, milestones based projects for e.g. $4 million to be spent in 5 years. There are usually many delays - logistics, bureaucracy, funds that didnt arrive on time etc. Sooner than you think, 2 years are over, and things are done hurriedly in the next 3 years. The project implementation teams ups its sticks and jets away [since the funding is over they have no reason to be there]. Very soon the project collapses, since there is no fallback, support etc. OLPC on the other hand appears to be a community backed project on open source principles [both on the hardware and software front]. So, there is always some backup and support available. I see them moving slowly, which is encouraging because they are getting feedback from the few places where they are doing test rollouts. Whether they can translate the same principles lower down the chain in the countries where they intend to deploy is still a big question mark....
