An interesting addition to our conversation on OLPC; I find these critiques fairly convincing; I'm surprised that with all of the heat around the project (I mean in general, not here on iDC) , I haven't heard more about this earlier failure.
<br><br>Does anyone know more about that?<br><br>Also, what about this idea that network infrastructure needs to come first? Is that really more important, as important?<br><br>I think it's pretty important, but does the lack of net connections negate the benefit of a computer? My gut reaction is that connecting to the net is more important than owning a personal machine, but I think I'm biased by my own net addiction...
<br><br>Best, Kim<br><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br><span class="gmail_quote">From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Ronda Hauben</b> <<a href="mailto:netcolumnist@gmail.com">netcolumnist@gmail.com</a>><br>
Date: Oct 27, 2007 10:44 AM<br>Subject: <nettime> Critique One Laptop Per Child Project<br>To: <a href="mailto:nettime-l@kein.org">nettime-l@kein.org</a><br><br></span><br>'One Laptop Per Child' Program Presented at UN
<br>Will it help to spread the Internet to all?<br><br><br>The "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) program was presented at the United<br>Nations to ambassadors from the Least Developed Countries and others<br>who were interested on Oct. 22.
<br><br>Nicholas Negroponte, the founder and former Chairman of the Media<br>Center at MIT, was the featured speaker.<br><br>His talk was intriguing in several ways.<br><br>I have been thinking for some time about what has happened to the
<br>spirit and excitement I saw in Tunis in November 2005 when I went to<br>the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).<br><br>At that meeting of representatives of the countries who are members of<br>the UN, many of the speakers spoke about the people in their countries
<br>wanting access to the Internet. Several of the developing countries<br>sent heads of state to make the plea that their nations and people not<br>be left behind.<br><br>After covering the world summit in Tunis, I realized it would be
<br>good to see what has happened after Tunis. I wondered if there was<br>any program at the UN to fulfill on the promise made at that summit.<br>Thus far I had seen little sign of any followup at the UN. Given this<br>context, much that was presented on Monday by Negroponte was quite
<br>appealing.<br><br>Basically his program is to create a small laptop using little energy<br>for primary school children in developing countries. Originally the<br>scaled down laptop would cost $100, but the estimation is that it will
<br>cost around $188 or a little over $200, when the money needed for a<br>server for a site using a number of laptops is included in the cost.<br><br>Negroponte spoke about how the laptop would be connected to the<br>Internet so it should not be seen as a laptop program but as a way to
<br>connect to the Internet. He stressed that this would be even in places<br>not connected to electricity, by using generators, solar panels, or<br>even a hand crank which is part of the laptop.<br><br>He said that the focus of his program is on learning and how children
<br>learn. He proposed that the laptop would encourage children to<br>maintain their passion for learning as they would be learning by<br>doing, by interacting with the world.<br><br>Negroponte also has a scheme to sell the laptops to people who can
<br>afford to pay for two. One of the laptops will be a donation to one<br>of the programs in a poor country. The buy one give one program is to<br>be available from November 12. (1) The fact that the laptop is also a<br>
linux box is an incentive for those who appreciate linux to take the<br>offer seriously.<br><br>One striking factor in his presentation got little attention. In<br>November 2005 Negroponte generated a lot of excitement in Tunis
<br>with his announcement of a similar program. But that program didn't<br>succeed. In referring to the failure of his earlier program,<br>Negroponte said that when it came to putting up money to make the<br>program happen, those promising to provide the money didn't come
<br>through. Reading some background on the earlier program it appears<br>that he had expected Brazil and Nigeria to place very large orders for<br>laptops, and that the orders didn't materialize.<br><br>There were several other speakers as part of the program at the UN on
<br>Monday. Then several questions were raised. A demonstration of the<br>laptops followed.<br><br>Walter Bender, a former MIT Media Lab Director, is the president of<br>the nonprofit organization OLPC that Negroponte and others created to
<br>carry out their plan. During the demonstration, Bender was asked if<br>he could help one to understand how real the program is. The question<br>referred to the fact that there was already one failure, yet those<br>involved with OLPC were still making big promises. Bender said to read
<br>his blog as a way to begin to learn about the program. He didn't give<br>a url, but may been referring to "latest news" section on the OLPC Web<br>site.(2)<br><br>The Wikipedia entry on "$100 Laptop" is helpful in giving not only
<br>some background about the program, but also references to other<br>programs to provide laptops for children in developing countries.<br>(3) The Wikipedia entry refers to a critique by Lee Felsenstein of<br>the OLPC program.(4) Lee Felsenstein is one of the pioneers of the
<br>personal computer movement in the 1970s.<br><br>Felsenstein commends Negroponte and the OLPC program for "raising<br>issues and focusing attention" in a really visible way on the<br>technical challenge of providing access to the Internet for all
<br>people. He is critical, however, of its top-down structure and the<br>lack of research before promoting it for orders of multi-million<br>units. Felsenstein points to the lack of an infrastructure to support<br>the ICT systems in the areas they are being designed to serve, and
<br>proposes that instead there needs to be large-scale implementation of<br>community infrastructures to provide the groundwork needed for the<br>laptops to be functional. Also he questions the notion of promoting<br>one particular laptop and instead proposes an infrastructure that will
<br>support a variety of different laptops.<br><br>Felsenstein's critique demonstrates why it would be appropriate for<br>the UN to sponsor a program with presentations by those with various<br>ideas about what is needed to spread Internet connectivity around the
<br>globe, particularly focusing on how to provide the Internet to people<br>in the poorest countries and most remote regions.<br><br>Also it would be helpful to have presentations of critiques of<br>the Negroponte program as part of any further programs at the UN
<br>promoting this particular program. Hearing about different programs<br>or at least having some exposure to critiques of OLPC would provide<br>some perspective to help to judge the soundness of Negroponte's<br>presentation. During the demonstration at the UN on Monday, some of
<br>the delegates from various countries expressed their reservations<br>about whether this was a good direction for the efforts of their<br>countries.<br><br>The problem of spreading the Internet around the globe remains a
<br>serious challenge. Negroponte's program of asking developing countries<br>to buy laptops for their primary school children, however, does not<br>solve this problem. Though the presentation he made at the UN did<br>
succeed in recognizing that there is a need, the fact that the need is<br>for Internet access is sidestepped by focusing only on laptops.<br><br>Negroponte's program doesn't provide a means for the needed research
<br>and exploration to solve the problem of how to spread the Internet to<br>developing countries and remote regions.<br><br>Bender acknowledged that the laptops were not the Internet. He<br>proposed that they could be considered to be gateways to the Internet.
<br>When one UN representative asked Bender how the laptops would be<br>connected to the Internet, Bender said that there are satellites out<br>there and that their owners could probably be convinced to donate some<br>unused space.
<br><br>This assumption does not provide much assurance to a country<br>considering whether to spend a lot of money buying laptops for its<br>school children. Having to trust that the problem of getting Internet<br>connectivity for the laptops will be solved in an easy fashion, as
<br>by finding some satellite owner willing to provide the access as a<br>donation, is not a reliable foundation.<br><br>One lesson from how the Internet was developed and spread around<br>the world is that there was the necessary scientific and technical
<br>research to identify the crucial problems and then the collaboration<br>among researchers from a number of countries to solve these problems.<br>(5) This was how, for example, UNIX and then Linux, were developed.<br>This is how TCP/IP, as the basis for the Internet, was developed.
<br>Negroponte said that he was not doing his program to make money, but<br>neither has he demonstrated that he is fostering the needed research<br>methodology to solve the difficult technical and social problem of<br>providing Internet access for all.
<br><br> Notes:<br><br><br>(1) <a href="http://www.xogiving.org/">http://www.xogiving.org/</a><br><br>(2) <a href="http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news">http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news
</a><br><br>(3) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$100_laptop">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$100_laptop</a><br><br>(4) "Problems with the $100 laptop" by Lee Felsenstein<br><br><a href="http://www.fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2005/11/problems_with_t.html">
http://www.fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2005/11/problems_with_t.html</a><br><br>(5) "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet"<br><br><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/">http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
</a><br><br>URL OMNI:<br><a href="http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=43237">http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=43237</a><br>9&no=380774&rel_no=1<br><br><br>
An earlier version of this article appears on the Blog "Netizen<br>Journalism and the New News" <a href="http://taz.de/blogs/netizenblog/">http://taz.de/blogs/netizenblog/</a><br><br><br><br><br><br><br># distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
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