One Laptop Per Child Program

[Ca3799]

What do you think of this program? Right now they have a "Give One, Get One" program running unit the end of the year (and also specials for those who don't necessarily want one for themselves, but would rather give two, etc.).

I'd kind of like to get one on the G1G1 program, but it would dink my budget more than I'm comfortable with at this time.

Do you think it is a worthwhile program?

[FatBaldGuy]

Do you have a link, so that perhaps we might know what program you're talking about?

[Voyager]

Here you go. (http://laptop.org/laptop/) . We've ordered one (or two. :) ) You get a $200 tax deduction for doing it (for the laptop you give away). We bought one ( haven't gotten it yet) since it seems cool, and we support the idea, and so my wife can get a laptop to take simple notes when away from home. She has a desktop she likes, and I have a laptop, but this is a cheap way to get another. Anyone else buy one?

Here (http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/12/01/one_laptop_per_child_orders_surge/) is an article about the current status of the program. I didn't realize you got a free year of T-Mobile access when you ordered- that is very useful, especially if I can use it on mine also.

I'm not sure I'd get it as a primary machine, or without the charitable considerations.

[Boyo Jim]

I saw a story about this just the other night. What made it really useful in rough and tumble environment is what I wouldn't like about it. AFAIK it is a totally sealed box -- no disk drives, no IO ports. No mouse, no joystick, no anything that's not already in the box. No clue as to whether there is any software out there that can be run on it, assuming one could download it from the web.

It seems like it would be a very good web browser. No mention of email capability. It seems like it might be a good teaching aid -- if there is good software in it for that purpose.

I think it would be a GREAT kid's toy, and maybe that's enough. I'm not convinced kids could learn to program without any help, which is what the inventor claims. He says it's even more important to get the computers in the hands of kids who AREN'T in school than those who are.

[squeegee]

Wiki's got a pretty good page about the XO-1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1) hardware.

I have mixed feelings about the program itself. I agree with most of the stuff written in the OLPC Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olpc) regarding Effective use of money (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olpc#Effective_use_of_money)

[WhyNot]

Here you go. (http://laptop.org/laptop/) . We've ordered one (or two. :) ) You get a $200 tax deduction for doing it (for the laptop you give away). We bought one ( haven't gotten it yet) since it seems cool, and we support the idea, and so my wife can get a laptop to take simple notes when away from home. She has a desktop she likes, and I have a laptop, but this is a cheap way to get another. Anyone else buy one?
I hope their hardware and software is better than their webpage design. I just spent about 10 minutes on there, and I have no idea what it's about, how to get involved or how your wife got a laptop from them.

[Spezza]

Yes, because children who have nothing else need a laptop.

The program is a joke. Ok, it has noble intentions. However, the intentions are completely misplaced. We need to build infrastructure for these children, and their parents, not give them another free handout in the form of a laptop.

Seriously, how is a laptop going to help third world students learn?

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

Yes, because children who have nothing else need a laptop.

The program is a joke. Ok, it has noble intentions. However, the intentions are completely misplaced. We need to build infrastructure for these children, and their parents, not give them another free handout in the form of a laptop.

Seriously, how is a laptop going to help third world students learn?

I pretty much completely agree with this. It's misguided at best.

[Cat Fight]

Yes, because children who have nothing else need a laptop.

The program is a joke. Ok, it has noble intentions. However, the intentions are completely misplaced. We need to build infrastructure for these children, and their parents, not give them another free handout in the form of a laptop.

Seriously, how is a laptop going to help third world students learn?

But according to the linked page, not all of the 'committed' countries are Third World.

Argentina
Brazil (not yet, is in study) [12]
Cambodia
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
Egypt
Greece
Libya
Nigeria
Pakistan
Peru[13]
Rwanda[14]
Tunisia
United States of America [15]
Uruguay

Perhaps local libraries or fully functioning classroom computers could serve mroe students better. I don't know. Any teachers want to weigh in- can a child get by anymore without a personal/home computer?

[dangermom]

I can appreciate the intention, but I really think that kids need a lot of other, more basic things before they need laptop computers.

[Boyo Jim]

Just now I'm imagining a billion kids spamming me for lunch money.

[MrFantsyPants]

I can appreciate the intention, but I really think that kids need a lot of other, more basic things before they need laptop computers.
I think the underlying idea behind the program is not that you are giving the kids a computer. You are giving them access to a world of knowledge in their own village. Computers can't change the world, but ideas can. The program has the power to take a kid in a remote village in Africa, and make them part of the world.

[si_blakely]

I was pretty keen to do this. I like the concept, I think the execution is pretty good, and the trickle down results will have an impact on entire communities.

I can see why there is skepticism. There are things that poor children need more than a laptop. Healthcare, safe living environments, shelter, food, clothes. And I am involved in a small local charity where I live that runs a health clinic and 2 schools in a slum in Nairobi. We are building a new school and a hospital. I hear the stories and talk to the people who work there, and those who have visited the project. And the need is great. It's challenging and heartbreaking. And I put money into the project because it's important. And they won't be ready for the XO for many years, infrastructure is too important.

But for educational spending, once you are beyond classrooms and teachers, the XO is a great investment. A book is a book, until it becomes firestarters or toilet paper or whatever (and books don't last very long in many places). The XO laptop can be every book ever written. Communities in the third world can be transformed by a single mobile phone - the XO gives that communication capability and much more. So I think it can be a great tool in the right place.


But there is no European program, and then the Asus EEE laptop was released and the full Linux goodness of that has undermined my philanthropic motivations.

I'll make a choice in the new year.

Si

[Tuckerfan]

Yes, because children who have nothing else need a laptop.

The program is a joke. Ok, it has noble intentions. However, the intentions are completely misplaced. We need to build infrastructure for these children, and their parents, not give them another free handout in the form of a laptop.

Seriously, how is a laptop going to help third world students learn?
Well, this BBC story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7115348.stm) offers some cluesSome of the children have learnt how to fix broken keyboards and remove the screens and batteries. They act as engineers for the whole of the school - fixing friends laptops as and when needs arise. But software and infrastructure problems may be more tricky.Such skills are very valuable in that part of the world. In a few years, expect to see the kids craft new uses for the OLPCs and their components that the designers never imagined.

Leo Laporte practically creams his pants when he tries out one of the programs installed on the OLPC. (http://twit.tv/floss21)

Now, suppose a village decides to send one kid to college (or some other higher education institution than is available in the village). If that institution has computers and the kid's never seen one before, he's got a steep learning curve ahead of him. But, if he's been playing with computers for years, then he'll have a much easier time at school, even if the computers there run Windows.

Right now, much of the innovation in cellphone services is being driven by the developing world, and not by us wealthier folks. In many places, cellphone airtime functions as currency. People are also able to suppliment their income by renting their phones.

[Spezza]

I think the underlying idea behind the program is not that you are giving the kids a computer. You are giving them access to a world of knowledge in their own village. Computers can't change the world, but ideas can. The program has the power to take a kid in a remote village in Africa, and make them part of the world.

Ideas are certainly nice when we're sitting comfortably in our climate controlled brick houses. Ideas are pretty useless when you're squatting in your mud shack.

The counter-argument considers the real investment in the program verus the potential benefits. On an individual basis, the idea isn't bad. However, for developing nations to invest considerable sums to buy laptops for rural children who desperately need better access to clean water, not a free computer, the idea is bad. And how does this laptop give them or their village access to a "world of knowledge"? Where is the internet in rural Africa?

Johnny needs access to medicine, clean water, food, proper shelter, all way before he needs a laptop. Pretending that a laptop can somehow redress his fundamental, his basis, inadequacies is... baffling. (Only a population of people who have never experienced daily life without the basic necessities already fulfilled could assume that providing a laptop would somehow benefit people without basic necessities.)

This all excludes the fact that these laptops are going to have terribly short lifespans. Their owners don't have the facilities to properly accommodate these pieces of technology. Do they possess shelter that is immune from the elements? Dust, rain, heat; I can't see how these laptops will prove worth the investment.

Personally, I'd much rather see the money being spent on basic infrastructure construction. Give these children access to clean water and health care. Once they have the essentials, the fundamentals, maybe then we can start to address higher order concerns. Until then, I can only really see this program as synonymous with giving our homeless populations laptops.

[WhyNot]

Ideas are certainly nice when we're sitting comfortably in our climate controlled brick houses. Ideas are pretty useless when you're squatting in your mud shack.

<snip>

Personally, I'd much rather see the money being spent on basic infrastructure construction. Give these children access to clean water and health care. Once they have the essentials, the fundamentals, maybe then we can start to address higher order concerns. Until then, I can only really see this program as synonymous with giving our homeless populations laptops.
Well, since I still can't discover exactly what it is these people are trying to do (they're full up on jargon and using a lot of words to say nothing at all), I can only argue blindly. But there's a lot of room between "squatting in your mud shack" and "sitting comfortably in our climate controlled brick houses". While I don't think that giving computers to children in remote areas without electrical outlets to charge their new laptops makes sense, there are plenty of places that do have electricity and water (probably drawn from a well) and enough food to live on, if not grow to 6 feet tall, that could benefit from an infusion of simple educational technology.

And I don't think it necessarily true that efforts like this take away resources from other worthy programs. There's no reason one can't work on clean water and laptop access. The people who know about water should do the one, and the people who know about computers should do the other. And each of them should reach out to donors, whether that be cash, time or knowledge, to give as their skills and funds allow. Doesn't it make more sense to put a computer programmer to work programming laptops, rather than paying him to go to school to learn about water reclamation?

[Voyager]

I hope their hardware and software is better than their webpage design. I just spent about 10 minutes on there, and I have no idea what it's about, how to get involved or how your wife got a laptop from them.
Wait until you order. They really, really want you to use Paypal - obnoxiously so.

When we ordered the day before Thanksgiving there were six days left, so the buy one give one program may be over. I looked at it when the stories on the sale came out, and was expecting some announcement that it was starting, but I never saw anything. I'm glad I remembered it before it was too late.

[Voyager]

While I don't think that giving computers to children in remote areas without electrical outlets to charge their new laptops makes sense, there are plenty of places that do have electricity and water (probably drawn from a well) and enough food to live on, if not grow to 6 feet tall, that could benefit from an infusion of simple educational technology.


Take a look at hardware/features at my first link. The laptop comes with a crank at least for charging by muscle power, and is designed to be chargeable from car batteries. Please give them some credit - they are quite aware that there isn't electricity in their target environment.

[Voyager]

Ideas are certainly nice when we're sitting comfortably in our climate controlled brick houses. Ideas are pretty useless when you're squatting in your mud shack.

You have it totally backwards. Ideas are nice in our environment. Ideas like better agricultural methods, methods of disease control, the importance of nutrition can be life savers there.

The counter-argument considers the real investment in the program verus the potential benefits. On an individual basis, the idea isn't bad. However, for developing nations to invest considerable sums to buy laptops for rural children who desperately need better access to clean water, not a free computer, the idea is bad. And how does this laptop give them or their village access to a "world of knowledge"? Where is the internet in rural Africa?

I've seen a picture of a house in rural India with no water but with Internet access. No one is saying that a laptop will solve everyone's problems, but access to information is something these villages don't have now. It's not an either/or thing. Plus, these laptops are a hell of a lot cheaper than running water to villages.

Johnny needs access to medicine, clean water, food, proper shelter, all way before he needs a laptop. Pretending that a laptop can somehow redress his fundamental, his basis, inadequacies is... baffling. (Only a population of people who have never experienced daily life without the basic necessities already fulfilled could assume that providing a laptop would somehow benefit people without basic necessities.)

Do you see the inhabitants of rural villages as the functional equivalent of the homeless in the US? Not counting refugees, why do you think that they don't have shelter? They've got food and water also - again, except in areas of famine or drought, people can make a living like this. The laptop can make them work more efficiently, and open their eyes to so many things that we take for granted.

This all excludes the fact that these laptops are going to have terribly short lifespans. Their owners don't have the facilities to properly accommodate these pieces of technology. Do they possess shelter that is immune from the elements? Dust, rain, heat; I can't see how these laptops will prove worth the investment.

Personally, I'd much rather see the money being spent on basic infrastructure construction. Give these children access to clean water and health care. Once they have the essentials, the fundamentals, maybe then we can start to address higher order concerns. Until then, I can only really see this program as synonymous with giving our homeless populations laptops.
You've just insulted hundreds of millions of people. People living in rural villages can be very successful at what they do. They are not homeless. They are very likely not starving. Also, have you even looked at the laptop? It looks pretty rugged to me. Whyever do you think its designers are so stupid as to not realize that this thing had better stand up to a rural environment and kids?

[Ca3799]

Just a couple of points about the XO laptop- It can be hand cranked, string cranked, pedal powered (I think) or solar powered. It is a completely sealed unit that was designed to survive in multiple environments including deserts and humid conditions, to survive falls, and to last about 5 years. It also uses a mesh network were it automatically contacts any nearby internet access.

Another cool feature is the ability to switch between screen types (color and black and white) so it can be used in daylight, as many school classes in the world happen outdoors. Also, the user cna look behind the screen at the programming using just one click.

Negroponte says its popular in villages without electricity because it is often the only light source in the home and that illiterate parents can communicate with the teacher through the video feature. He reports in the video below that some places have to turn the servers off at night because the teachers were getting so many emails from the kids asking for school help!

Negroponte stresses that it is not a 'laptop project', but an 'education project'.


Here is a 17 minute video of Negroponte discussing the project: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/41

[Mangetout]

Take a look at hardware/features at my first link. The laptop comes with a crank at least for charging by muscle power, and is designed to be chargeable from car batteries. Please give them some credit - they are quite aware that there isn't electricity in their target environment.
Does the hand crank come with it as standard? I know they originally planned to build it in, but the last I heard, they had been planning to release the human-powered chargers after the main release of the machines - if they managed to include them as a standard accessory, that's really great news.

[Mangetout]

Wait until you order. They really, really want you to use Paypal - obnoxiously so.I don't quite understand why that's obnoxious - they've just chosen PayPal as the shopping cart method for their site - what's wrong with that?

[Voyager]

I don't quite understand why that's obnoxious - they've just chosen PayPal as the shopping cart method for their site - what's wrong with that?
If they had said we take PayPal only, that would be fine. But what they do is to say PayPal is a very good method of payment (fine). But to get around it I said I didn't have a PayPal account (a lie, but I was away from home and didn't have my password with me.) I made the mistake of giving the credit card I use with PayPal, which they rejected since I did have a PayPal account. I finally did a one time charge. If they said they didn't want to pay credit card fees, fine. But I've never had so much trouble checking out on any other site. The attitude I got was that anyone not doing it their way was a twit.

[Mangetout]

That sounds more like a quirk of the PayPal system than anything specific to the OLPC guys.

PayPal shopping carts are about the easiest thing out there to set up if you want to start selling something online - that perhaps indicates they're a bit less professional than they ought to be.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Johnny needs access to medicine, clean water, food, proper shelter, all way before he needs a laptop.
You could make the same argument about literacy. Computers and the internet are far more game-changing than movable type ever was, and no one would argue that children in the Third World shouldn't have access to books and literacy because they're of secondary importance. Computers are the emblem of our age, and their usefulness knows few bounds. Why on earth shouldn't Third World children have access to this bounty?

[Tuckerfan]

Does the hand crank come with it as standard? I know they originally planned to build it in, but the last I heard, they had been planning to release the human-powered chargers after the main release of the machines - if they managed to include them as a standard accessory, that's really great news.
The word used to describe everybody's reaction to the OLPC despie it's flaws is: Nerdgasm. (http://twit.tv/124) Laporte's guests give a good rundown of the features and problems with the OLPC.

[Voyager]

That sounds more like a quirk of the PayPal system than anything specific to the OLPC guys.

PayPal shopping carts are about the easiest thing out there to set up if you want to start selling something online - that perhaps indicates they're a bit less professional than they ought to be.
It kind of went along with WhyNot's comment on the poor state of the website. I didn't have any problems navigating, actually, but I've seen a lot better.

[Voyager]

The word used to describe everybody's reaction to the OLPC despie it's flaws is: Nerdgasm. (http://twit.tv/124) Laporte's guests give a good rundown of the features and problems with the OLPC.
Somewhere I read the prediction that having one of these things would be a badge of honor in geekdom. That of course has nothing to do with why I'm getting one. ;) I'll write a review when I get it and have had a chance to play with it. No ship date given, though.

[Mangetout]

The word used to describe everybody's reaction to the OLPC despie it's flaws is: Nerdgasm. (http://twit.tv/124) Laporte's guests give a good rundown of the features and problems with the OLPC.
I'll have a listen to that later - but the word sounds pretty apt.

I'll confess, I do actually want one of these machines (can't get one yet as I live in England). I wonder how long until they start appearing on eBay? I wonder how long until kids in developing countries start selling them on eBay...

I know that's a violation of the license agreement, but it's going to happen all the same.

[Tuckerfan]

They really should allow anyone who wants one to buy one, as that would be a great laptop to carry on trips where you want/need a PC but have to worry that something might happen to it. One of Leo's regulars goes to the MIT fleamarkets and buys all the NEC Mobilepro's he can find (for about $10!) as it's perfect for fieldwork, runs normal Windows (or Linux) programs and if something happens to it, he's not lost a $1K laptop.

[Mangetout]

I wonder if their goals might be easier to reach if they open-sourced the whole thing - including hardware - make it so that anyone can build them - then who cares if everybody has one - without the R&D overhead, manufacturers ought to be able to crank these things out for peanuts.

I suppose the OLPC guys do have some costs to recoup at the moment, but even if they didn't go open source, but licensed some other manufacturers at a dollar per unit, they could do that, at the same time as making the device cheap and ubiquitous.

[Tuckerfan]

Much of the development in cellphones is being driven by the needs of the developing world, and I have a great deal of hope that the OLPC will inspire the same thing to happen in the PC world. Already, MS and Intel are turning out competing models. So far, their prices aren't any better than the OLPC, but as the three of them try to outdo one another, we could see some downward movement on the price.

[Kyla]

You could make the same argument about literacy. Computers and the internet are far more game-changing than movable type ever was, and no one would argue that children in the Third World shouldn't have access to books and literacy because they're of secondary importance. Computers are the emblem of our age, and their usefulness knows few bounds. Why on earth shouldn't Third World children have access to this bounty?

I agree with this completely. I wish Bulgaria was participating in this program. It would be fantastic if all of my kids had internet access at home.

Just because someone lives in a poor country doesn't mean they have no available water and are starving to death. And education is a fundamental human right, too.

[Tuckerfan]

Heh, no need to worry about an increase in Nigerian spam it seems, XP to debut on OLPCs next year! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7130637.stm)Microsoft is to begin field tests of Windows XP working on the so-called $100 laptop, or XO, early in 2008.

It has not committed to offering XP on the XO laptop but hopes to release the operating system in the first half of 2008 if the trials succeed.

The work, undertaken as part of the firm's plans to widen access to technology, forms part of a project to run Windows on flash-based machines.So, the entire project will be brought a screeching halt as laptop after laptop falls victim to spyware, viruses, and all the other forms of malware in the world. ;)

[HubZilla]

Why do I picture a bunch of laptops being hoarded by warlords, like Somalia?

[Boyo Jim]

I see small children in an enormous factory sweatshop, pressing keys to the beat of kettle drum at the back of the room.