One Laptop Per Child

There’s been a lot of controversy this week with regards to the Nic Negroponte OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. For those of you with no idea on the project you can catch up with it here: OLPC (Wikipedia) .

The idea is simple: give underprivileged kids a laptop to allow them to be part of the tech world and acquire the skills to compete in it. The laptop would cost only $100, be low powered but high on learning. At first it was hailed as a major step forward in the computing world and would create parity between first world and developing countries. “Cool” is what you’re thinking. You might even be thinking: “Where can I get one of those?”. I think however that the below cartoon pretty much explains why this is a terrible idea quite perfectly.

The problem is simple: no one wants to buy this little laptop. The reasons are varied but honest: the little laptop that could simply has no point.

Financially the OLPC is a ridiculous investment. We’re not talking about American schools, we’re looking at poor developing countries. If you told some kid in Sudan he was getting a laptop would they maybe be a bit more worried about, oh I don’t know, the genocide going on around them? I just can’t see how this is going to make the world a better place? A government could spend a million dollars for ten thousand machines (it doesn’t work out perfectly as the machines need servers, net connections etc) or they could spend that money on setting up infrastructure to grow the country? If you’ve ever read Martin Meredith’s book “The State of Africa” you might get the idea that more important to the average African leader isn’t whether the children of their nation can read or write but where they can next embezel funds. You need to ask yourself, why would they care?

The biggest problem however is due to the fact that it lacks the Windows operating system and the processing power to run it. If the aim is to get these kids computer literate then surely they need to be literate in the operating system the world runs on? Some specialized version of Linux really isn’t going to cut it in this world unfortunately. I also feel that giving laptops to kids that lack basic education is akin to using a rocket launcher to kill a fly. Maybe I’m old fashioned but did Nic Negroponte never consider that classic concept known as books? Seriously create a library that can be installed anywhere, with books that educate at many levels. It would be a thousand times more effective than a laptop which requires maintenance and has many other related costs. Frankly, a house, running water and food seem like much higher priorities than a laptop. Call me cynical, I see better uses for the money.

The OLPC is absolutely tanking in terms of countries they are buying in. There was tons of interest but the bubble has totally burst and people realize it’s ridiculous. Buy a book, it’s very educational.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.