<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><P class="MsoNormal" style=""><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">One Slate per Child</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">I have been reading with interest the discussion of the ‘hundred-dollar laptop’ and the One Laptop per Child initiative as I sit in Malawi, a small landlocked Southern African nation lodged between Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">According to Wikipedia, the OLPC effort has its philosophical base in the idea that children with laptops will be able to do a certain kind of thinking that isn’t possible without the computer - exploring certain areas - particularly in math and science where computer access offers a qualitatively superior learning experience.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Making such machines available at low prices should allow developing countries to bridge the ‘digital divide’, and leapfrog learning. Countries that have signed on include Uruguay.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">India has given a definite no.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Either way, the OLPC initiative is an aspect of ‘development’ even ‘IT for Development.’</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">How does the initiative square with the reality of a small African nation?</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">Malawi - whose 13 million people have an average life expectancy of 37 years, 14% of population with HIV/AIDS, and a GDP of about $600 per person - usually rates near the bottom on any scale of development.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Over 80% of the people are subsistence farmers, growing barely enough maize, what Americans call corn, annually to sustain their families if they are lucky.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They often aren’t.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Any fluctuation in commodity prices, the weather, the availability of inputs such as seed or fertilizer can mean starvation. The economy has followed a downward trend for years.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Development gurus shake their heads.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Malawi’s exports are tea, sugar, tobacco, and corn, all of which must be hauled overland on very bad roads to Mozambican or South African ports.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The natural mineral resources that make other African countries attractive to foreign investment are not part of the picture here. The capitalist path of industrial development leading to the pot of gold at the end of the economic rainbow is not one that Malawi will take any time in the near future.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">But Malawi has a few plusses.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For one, a successful transition from a dictatorship to a multi-party state. [One cynical friend suggested that the lack of resources has been a plus here, as there’s little to fight over.]<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Malawian society is not notably corrupt, which puts Malawi in the class of what George Bernard Shaw once called ‘the Deserving Poor.’ Foreign donors contribute hugely to the local economy.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A large percentage of the 5000 registered vehicles here are shiny SUVs sporting the logos of projects of the UN, the US, the EU.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">In fact, I am here in Blantyre, Malawi’s second city and the commercial capital, to help set up the video wing of a NGO that produces radio programming.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Although television has existed here since 1997, it is not at all widespread.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Radios are everywhere, and Story Workshop produces some of the most popular programs in the country, with high quality production on themes such as gender-based violence, food security, and HIV/AIDS awareness.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>With commercial media penetration so limited, the impact of this social-issue media is quite high.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Everywhere I go, people seem to follow </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"><I>Zimachitika</I></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> with a focus on AIDS, </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"><I>Kamanga Zula</I></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN style="">, which deals with youth and gender-based violence, or one of the other weekly shows. [See <A href="http://www.storyworkshop.org/">www.storyworkshop.org</A>]<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As the titles of these programs suggest, they are in Chichewa, the national language.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">As a media production operation, Story Workshop is advanced as any place in Malawi in terms of communications technology. There are about thirty employees.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Laptops are not universal, but about half of the staff are issued one for work.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As a perk, they can take the machines home. There is a local area network, several desktop machines, for office and media production use.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And of course, there is a connection to the Internet.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The bandwidth is so miniscule that the early dial-up modems of dim memory seem lightening-like in retrospect.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Although email works fairly well, downloading an image or a pdf file is a project.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Nonetheless, a slow link is vastly different from none.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">What about other media?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Malawi is home to a lively and fairly independent press.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>While circulation rates are not high, every issue of the 2 national dailies is read (in English) by many people.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>With no advertizer base, magazines are non-existent. There is one state television station of distinctly mediocre quality.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Middle-class people can pick up South African satellite broadcasts using dbs dishes. For the rich about US$80 a month will get you some 100 channels of global content.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The media picture follows the post-globalization dictum that every First World city now has a Third World city in it, and every Third World city has in it one of the First World.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is certainly true here, where crowded townships contrast with the vast compounds of the well-to-do strung out across the hilltops the treeline filled in with satellite dishes large and small.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">In this rather thinly populated media landscape it is worth noting one area where communications technology is burgeoning. Cell phones are to Malawi what Coca Cola once tried to be in the US: iconic and ubiquitous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The average Malawian has only sporadic access to clean water; electricity and paved roads are a rarity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>While some might think infrastructure projects are a higher priority, they depend on a socio-economic base and a level of state intervention that lie in the future.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In the meantime, individual Malawians are busy linking themselves up to one of the three competing cell phone networks.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>While Malawi had about 100,000 landline phones in 2005, there were already some half a million mobile phones according to the CIA Factbook.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And this number is growing rapidly as cell coverage is extended around the country.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">While the landline telephone system is rather antiquated<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(the national phone book includes instructions for how many times to turn the crank on your phone to get the operators attention) the mobile phone industry features current technology. In a recent interview on the BBC Africa Service with the head of Celtel Malawi,<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>the director touted his network’s effort to grid the country with towers even in roadless areas where the company blazes tracks to build its towers, and then hires villagers to staff them.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My experience suggests that the coverage outside the main cities is still unremarkable, but the advertizing is extremely widespread.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">‘Join our World!’<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>‘Let us connect you!’ shout the slogans in yellow on bright red backgrounds painted on walls, on the sides of trucks, on umbrellas, tee shirts and billboards.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">More intriguing than the hard sell of a large well-supported corporate campaign are the ad hoc local efforts to create support systems for cell phone usage.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Typical are the tiny ramshackle wooden shops, ironically similar in size and shape to the telephone booths of another era in Europe and North America.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here small entrepreneurs haul a lead oxide car battery charged at the local garage.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For a miniscule fee users can plug their cell phones in at this ‘charging station’.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These small local efforts to create communications infrastructure speak to the central place the ability to communicate holds for Malwians, even in what looks like a situation where logic might dictate other priorities.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">After all, this is a very poor country.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Almost no one buys a full tank of gas here, and cell phone cards are ‘topped up’ at the filling stations by customers who don’t even own a bicycle.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>On the main streets of Blantyre and along the highways women in red vests and parasols come to the car window to sell you minutes, , or or wait patiently sitting in little kiosks like miniature outdoor cafes perched in the otherwise muddy marketplaces.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">For Malawians on all economic levels cell phones hold the gloss of the new.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I am shown an iPhone, imported at great expense by an IT firm.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The employee told me they were waiting for the hack to come any day.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>People often have two phones, one for each of the major networks, or as another young tech-savvy user showed me, a cell phone from Dubai capable of handling two sim cards.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Malawian mobile etiquette seems to dictate that almost any activity, particularly a meeting, can be interrupted to take a call.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">All of this interest in cell phones is set against a backdrop of a country where few of the basics can be taken for granted.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I visited a pre-school.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Although it is inside the city limits, the locale is hardly easy to get to.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I engaged a taxi for about US$30, about a week’s pay for a middle class person.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>[A local might expect to pay half what I do.] This is the rainy season, and the dirt road is just on the edge of what is navigable for a regular passenger car.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The building the children use has a leaky tin roof.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The outhouse in back has actually collapsed in the rain, as had several shops (built from mud bricks) along the highway nearby in the torrential rains.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">The thirty or so children live in the neighborhood.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>About half-a-dozen of them are AIDS orphans in foster homes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All of the children wear extremely old used clothes.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The home-made wooden blocks at the pre-school seem to be some of the only toys they have encountered.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The kids are listless compared with children in other parts of the world.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>USAID statistics suggest that a terrifying 40% of Malawi’s children are malnourished, and will grow up stunted both physically and mentally.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is no electricity.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Lunch is cooked with charcoal.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A piece of furniture is pulled out from in front of one of the few windows where it is blocking the rain, in order to give me light to photograph.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The children are served ‘nsima’, Malawi’s mainstay, a kind of corn meal mush, like polenta without the flavor, and a meat stew, a special treat.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>One of the women who brings the food laments the fact that the local mothers who are hired to run the place set aside food for themselves before they feed the children.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">Anyhow, it is hard to know where the laptop fits in this picture.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Children can and do buy paper exercise books and pencils.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is tough to keep them, or any printed matter, in huts where people sit on the floor, where furniture is scarce, and water and dirt are everywhere.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As it is, although there are schools, text books are rare. Schools with electricity are also uncommon.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Because the classes are so large, well over 100 each in the public schools according to informed sources, school desks are also not practical.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And many classes end up under a shade tree as an alternative.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">What is appropriate communications technology for an educational situation here?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In terms of social context, Story Workshop, in conjunction with organizations such as UNICEF, works with schools and NGOs to develop ‘radio listening clubs’.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These are groups<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>that meet to discuss the issues raised in broadcasts on the social topics mentioned above.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The groups get reading matter related to the shows, tee shirts and in most cases a radio for the group to listen on, as well as on air recognition and interaction.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This model is a tried and true one in Southern Africa, going back to before independence, and creating a viable context for the technology and the content, content generated by Story Workshop writers using extensive time in the field talking to villagers.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">One component of a critical assessment of the OLPC initiative, or of IT products, involves a critique of a Western technology-based answer to social problems in societies already living with a long legacy of Western solutions. While the version of colonialism practiced here was not extremely vicious by the standards of some other African countries, it was hardly benign. Early settlement was commercial, and the resulting economy, where big estates own 40% of the arable land, is a clear legacy.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The anti-colonial struggle’s early heroes here include John Chilembwe, a teacher influenced by George Washington Carver who started a doomed armed rebellion with a few hundred followers after spending years trying against odds to set up schools and economic development projects.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Independence wasn’t ultimately much better. The dictator Hastings Banda provided some real benefits for farmers, but he was one of the only African leaders to ally himself with apartheid South Africa and he retained the colonial economy.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">In the forty years since the end of colonialism growth seems limited.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yet new communications technology is penetrating rapidly.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The rapid adoption of cell phones is intriguing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Unlike the situation in other countries, I haven’t seen big signs of social projects such as the SMS job bank in Nairobi, or the cellphone videos for AIDS awareness in West Africa.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Nevertheless, this wholesale adoption of mobile phone technology in a decidedly low tech environment shows that Malawians can and will take on new communications technology, finding workarounds for their lack of resources.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">What is clear that, like television before it, with new mobile phone technology, the medium is perceived as the message.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The cell phone is the voice of a new world, of a modernity acquirable in a way that leapfrogs the difficulties of creating the infrastructure and institutions of contemporary industrial society, however interpreted.</SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style="">These social implications are not perceived as culturally determined, or rather, the advent of ‘Western’ communications technology is perceived either as a neutral benefit, like the way a paved road is better than a dirt one, or as part of the new world of modernity in the way that drinking a Coca-Cola is ‘better’ than eating a local mango, for instance, or even drinking a local ‘Soba’ softdrink. In otherwords, as far as I can see, the culture critique is not taken seriously on a ground level.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> <SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; ">Another African critique of the OLPC initiative follows a line of thinking based on infrastructure priorities. <SPAN style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Marthe Dansohko from Cameroon, speaking at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia in 2005.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:.5in;line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: Arial"><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">"We know our land and wisdom is passed down through the generations. What is needed is clean water and real schools." </SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Very few trouble-free networks of any kind exist here in Malawi.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Water and electricity are available but subject to outages.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Transport is expensive and difficult. UNICEF, for instance,</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">distributed a school book by using a South African company for printing and another South African company for distribution to get copies to every school in the country with information about issues such as child labor. In general UNICEF</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">makes it a policy to work as closely as it can with government structures in order to develop capacity, but, I am told, any effort to distribute through the Education Ministry would be doomed to failure.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Where does this type of critique meet the desire of visionaries like Negroponte who are motivated in their efforts to promote the One Laptop per Child intiative by constructionist theories of learning that suggest that children will engage in problem-solving, particularly around math and science issues, in a whole new way given early access to computers?</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">For me, one question to ask emerges from looking at a broader context of pedagogical theory.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Negroponte says “It’s an education project, not a laptop project.”</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Right away, it is possible to suggest that inquiry-based learning is independent of a specific technology.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">In fact, computers and internet access guarantee little in the way of critical thinking.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">In a new program, children in New York City are taught inquiry-based methods of interacting with IT-based data by school librarian media specialists, who promote critical thinking and an ability to evaluate information as an antidote to the rising tide of a ‘cut-and-paste’ mentality.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">In otherwords, by meany measures access to IT has ahad a stultifying effect on independent thinking.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Instead of real research and evaluation most students are happy just to ‘google it.’</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">I had the opportunity to discuss the OLPC initiative with an educational consultant working with the Malawian Ministry of Education.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">She told that the Ministry of Education is in the middle of rolling out a new curriculum for primary and secondary education that has been five years in development.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">While the curriculum is vast and complex, at its heart lies an effort to move away from the time-honored rote learning methods of another era and take a step toward a curriculum that encourages students to evaluate information and think for themselves.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">One aspect of this curriculum is a new emphasis on pedagogical interactivity rather than verbal repetition.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">As support for this idea, the curriculum group suggested that the Ministry of Education make a slate, a chalkboard smaller than a normal sheet of writing paper, available to each beginning first grade student.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The cost would be about One euro per slate.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">There are approximately one million first graders each year in Malawi, so the initial cost would be about one million Euros, or about US$ 1.4 million.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The Education Ministry said this kind of money is simply not available.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">In this context cheap laptops, unless they come free, with extra money for distribution, curriculum development, teacher development, maintenance and repair, are destined to be as ineffectual as any other type of aid that does not integrate properly into the society it is designed to help.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">While laptops are not commonly given out as aid in Malawi, as mentioned above several initiatives have been developed with involve giving out radios.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Here again, taking into account both the social realities at hand and the relationship between communications technology and pedagogical goals seems key.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">I mentioned a successful example, the radio listening clubs, above.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">One less successful initiative is a so-called interactive radio initiative sponsored, I am told, by USAID.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Some 80,000 radios, of the South African windup design are being given out, enough to have as many as ten in every school in the country.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The idea is that teachers will play a program in class.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The trouble lies in the program content, which is the old fashioned type where a voice will be saying ‘2 time 2 equals…..’</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">and the students are supposed to chime in with ‘four!’</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Here the level of ‘interactivity’ is so minimal as to be meaningless, and seems to amount to communications technology being employed in the service of a hierarchical and ineffective model of pedagogy.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">In fact, I find out, the project is based on one in a neighboring country where many children are not in school at all, and was originally thought of as a substitute for school where classroom instruction was not available.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">In Malawi, most children are actually in a school situation, just not an adequate one.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">All this is not to say that a $100 laptop might not be useful here. Superficially, this is a country that is moving rapidly into the IT universe.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The city of Blantyre is crammed with Internet cafes.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Flash memory is easily purchased at the supermarket.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Signs for IT firms of all sorts cover the city walls.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Universities offer degree programs in computer science and media production.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">A paper assessing the country at the time of a recent national holiday mentioned about 800 or so students a year might expect to enter an institution of higher learning here.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Here, one could imagine, an inexpensive laptop might be useful.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Agricultural extension workers, whose ranks were decimated as part of a 90’s structural adjustment program, do use laptops, and that use, which leverages their small numbers, could be much more widespread.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Small businesses as well might benefit from affordable computing power.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">While more laptops might mean more Malawian geeks, IT culture is definitely here already.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Shafik, who does networking and configuration at an IT firm recalls his boss calling a company in Miami</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">to order a server.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The guy in Florida, after getting the delivery address in Africa, said something like, “Do you know what a server is for?”</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">“Of course,” replied the Malawian, “You just hang it in a tree and run wires to it.” Another young media company employee told me how he had cracked the security on a South African satellite signal decoder with an ingenious (and more or less legal) hack that forced the company to completely reprogram the device.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">I guess my sense is that the high tech end of Malawian society is growing apace.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The OLPC Initiative is at least an interesting gedenken experiment, a chance to bounce around ideas about society and communications tech.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">In a society otherwise based on agriculture, it is hard to know where this could all lead.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Could Blantyre become a second Bangalore?</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">A back office for corporate customer service operations attracted by people speaking reasonable English at miniscule salaries.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">For me at least, it might be said that from a grass roots point of view, the OLPC intiatives has some of the flavor of a typical totalizing solution.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">While there is little doubt in my mind that Malawians will benefit from low cost IT tech and pedagogical support, these can only be a factor in a complex social-technological equation, not a panacea. </SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The future of media tech in Malawi has several defining components.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">One is the advent of a consumer culture where desire is embedded in high-tech objects.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">This is symbolized by the recent arrival of the first shopping mall in Blantyre, with its huge supermarket, and its ‘Game Shop’ full of electronics, appliances, hardware toys and clothes.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Here we see laptops and cellphones as an aspect of consumerism, as style in a society whos industrial base is pretty much restricted to processing agricultural products.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">The next is the notion of ordinary users, ‘the multitude’ pulling tech in the direction that they want. In the West, ordinary users have redeployed many devices such as videocameras, or computers, and pulled development in directions not necessarily considered by corporate or academic planners. Although mobile communications technology is brought to Malawi with the help of investors eager for profit, the people here ‘vote’ for cell phones; they find a way to learn the technology and help to make it viable in a variety of ways.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">A third component is the capitalist logic of IT, which dictates businesses will have computers, LANs, printers, wifi etc. Although presented deterministically, the classic notion of commodity fetichism suggests that real social struggle is a hidden component of a package presented as the neutral sum of human knowledge. Nonetheless, Malawians in business and government are confronted with building and learning a typical modern IT environment. </SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">A fourth factor is the progressive wing of the NGOs, with their social agendas, their funding priorities, and their efforts to promote social communications.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><P class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:150%"><SPAN style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">Finally, the Malawian government has some control and some defining influence on behalf of the nation of Malawi in terms of the nature of media and communications in the country and its role in defining citizenship, sense of self, etc.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">This is understood quite critically.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 18px;">For instance, government use of the national radio to attack an opposition party was criticized with specific reference to Radio Mille Colines in Ruanda. </SPAN></FONT><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></P><DIV class="MsoBodyTextIndent">All these groups and forces influence the development of a communications and IT ecology in this marginal but very fertile landscape, suggesting the difficulty of defining a problem, and any possible solutions, when talking about the specific implementation of any IT-based project.<O:P></O:P></DIV><DIV class="MsoBodyTextIndent"> <O:P></O:P></DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jan 13, 2008, at 8:26 AM, Andreas Schiffler wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Brad Borevitz wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">it may be worth comparing this initiative to another big price breakthrough</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">in the news: the $2500 car. the consequences of this development are</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">potentially huge: culturally, environmentally, etc.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Makes US wonder why we pay 10x as much for a car (with interest probably<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">15x) without getting - as far as I can tell - 10x more car.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On the OLPC discussion, there is a lot of press lately:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"One Laptop Per Child Project Extends to American Students"</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><A href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141298-c,notebooks/article.html">http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141298-c,notebooks/article.html</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I would be interested to hear how "the third reason" for this<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(ad)venture would be implemented.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Maybe one could have a "global mesh" for people who are on the more<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">ubiquitous Internet with their device and don't need the "village mesh".<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Very interesting social networking problem.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"SimCity Source Code Is Now Open" so a version will make it onto the<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">OLPC soon (a stated goal):</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><A href="http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/08/01/12/1846256.shtml">http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/08/01/12/1846256.shtml</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Personally I love these kind of games, so does my son. But is it<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">appropriate teaching material?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"Intel Employee Caught Running OLPC News Site" is a nice one too:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><A href="http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2007/01/olpc_blog_draws.html">http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2007/01/olpc_blog_draws.html</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I guess one can't put much trust in "the blog" because it is just too<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">easy to publish.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--AS</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:iDC@mailman.thing.net">iDC@mailman.thing.net</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc">https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">List Archive:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/">http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">iDC Photo Stream:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">RSS feed:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc">http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">iDC Chat on Facebook:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647">http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>