They made a big hooplah a few years back, distributed a bunch of computers, and then… what?
Are there now schools with a bunch of these? Are they being actively used or did the project just kind of fade away?
It’s still out there - you can see activity on their blog, but a lot of the internet buzz has subsided - reason being - everyone has access to tablets, netbooks, ultrabooks now - a lot of the excitement in the early days of this project was based on the fact that the reality of such a compact computer was reasonably novel. People weren’t just excited about them as a concept - they wanted to own one.
Then netbooks came along (arguably riding the same wave), then iPads, etc.
Things have changed. Check out the raspberry pi project for example.
Their plans didn’t exactly work out the way they wanted either. Their goal was to sell them to governments in batches on 1 million but no governments signed up for that. They have sold 2.5 million so far and several countries bought a few hundred thousand. Uruguay bought one for every school child in the country between 6-12 years old. But things haven’t worked out so well for some of the users. A lot of issues, from lack of training and support to units breaking have caused use to drop over time.
They have apparently had enough monetary success that they are still continuing the work. They are supposedly working on a “well under $100” tablet as the next generation device, and their project inspired others. There is already a $50 Indian tablet called the Aakash which was launched as a competitor to the OLPC, but the first version turned out to be a piece of junk.
I used to follow that program a lot, I found it pretty idealistic.
Supposedly about 2 million were distributed. But looking at a map, about 1.4 million of those were in Peru and Uruguay. Rwanda got 100k. Other nations like Mali, iran or Mozambique only got 300 each (300, not 300,000). So it seems like it took off in about 5 or 6 countries, and went nowhere everywhere else.
As of 2012 there are tons of ways to get online and get a personal PC for $100 or less. Tablets, netbooks, used PCs and used laptops, etc. So the program seems pretty much moot now.
This happened:
Ethiopian Kids Learn to Hack Laptops
It’s worth noting that even if every child in the world doesn’t have a cheap laptop, that doesn’t mean the project wasn’t a success. It provided a lot of the early thought leadership behind technology and international development.
When the project was launched, it was met with a firestorm of criticism about being “inappropriate technology” for its target market and an overall poor use of fund. People basically said that poor people have no need for IT. Today, seven years later, we’ve come to recognize that technology is a massively helpful tool for international development. Cell phone banking has put powerful financial tools in the hands of the poor. Information sharing about safety and markets has made entire regions safer and more prosperous. Assessing communities and running the surveys that drive programs has become lightyears easier thanks to mobile apps. Health apps are an emerging force, and in many places today’s poor get SMS messages alerting them to free vaccinations and the like, while they send information to health agencies about local outbreaks and conditions in remote areas.
Nobody, in other words, thinks technology isn’t good of the poor any more. Early programs like this helped start it.
In other news, a colleague of mine who I served in Peace Corps Cameroon from 2006-2008 has just returned from a visit to her old village. While she was there, she raised funds to build and stock a computer lab in her very remote community. Five years later, the computers are still being used on a daily basis, and the ministry of education has sent over two qualified computer teachers- which just five years ago were almost nowhere to be found in the country. That village will never see another generation that doesn’t know how to use computers. How cool is that?
PS I love the link about Ethiopia and the hacked computers. Kids pick things up like you wouldn’t believe. I taught my kids in Cameroon who had literally never seen a computer how to click around Windows and perform basic functions in Word and Excel. After six months, we got an amazing five hour visit to a computer lab in the big city. Internet didn’t exist in my village, so these kids didn’t know anything about it. By the end of that five hour, they were queuing up Shakira videos, looking up sports stats, and generally making their way around the web. When my village did get internet, some of the saved searches at the net cafe were revealing: My heart broke when I read a search for “I think I’m gay”, in a place that is deeply homophobic. Knowledge is power, folks.
Firefox is working on a Smartphone OS which will probably be applied to smartphones sold in lower and middle income countries. So OLPC’s competition will be heating up.
Is that a true story? Sounds way cool but also a little unbelieveable
Wow. This deserves highlighting.
Your heart may have broken, but (as you clearly realize–no criticism of you whatsoever is intended!) there are gay people everywhere and without this tool, the person (or people) who typed that would have been without any resources at all. Technology really is a wonderful thing!
This link seems to be the main source for the story, referencing a talk given by Nicholas Negroponte at their conference.
That is way cool. This thread was actually prompted by a charity drive for Worldreader, an organization that wants to give Kindle and other e-ink readers to kids in the developing world. I wondered if that kind of stuff really works, and it’s heartening to hear a few success stories.
Given an equivalent expenditure, though, do you think tech is a better investment than human resources – teachers, consultants, etc.?
Every community is different, and everything needs balance. Think for a moment about all the things that nurtured you into a healthy and successful adulthood. Chance are it was a mix of teachers, doctors, after school programs, employers, social events, volunteer activities, toys, books, counselors, universities, self-exploration, libraries, family and a million other little things that slowly added up. There is no one magic bullet, but there are a lot of things that can be a solid little bucket thrown into the ocean of a human soul.
That said, training teachers and others to actually use the computers is essential. Computers are a wonderful toy and they have a lot of intrinsic worth to exploring them on that level alone. But to really use them for learning, improving communities, running more profitable businesses, etc. it is absolutely essential to ensure that people are trained in the specific mechanics of using computers for those purposes. Otherwise, people tend to use computers they way today’s grandparents use computers- which is awesome, but unleashes just a small fraction of their power.
I think Kindles would be well received. I travelled with one in Zambia and Zimbabwe two summers ago, and everywhere I went it was an object of much curiosity. The older 3G ones come with completely free rudimentary cell phone internet access, which works fine for checking emails and even reading the Dope, and the batteries last for weeks without charging- a lifesaver away from electricity (and places without any electricity will usually have someone somewhere who charges phones on a generator for a small fee.)
Granted, one of the other queries I saw was “How do I enslave someone using witchcraft?”, so it’s not all those tear-jerking warm fuzzies. I often wondered if I was happily training the next generation of Nigerian scammers. =P
Hopefully the gay kid got more practical advice than the witchcraft kid!
Just how do you enslave someone using witch-craft? I think an explanation here, in some degree of detail, would be received with great interest. 
Could have been the same kid. Just sayin.
Fox Special Report: Liberal One Laptop Per Child Program helps teach gay Ethopian children to enslave people with witchcraft!
Yes. The story was reported at the Emerging Technologies conference at MIT last month.
This is a pretty weak example of “hacking”. It really sounds like they figured out how to get into the settings page, and found and turned on the camera.