Slashdot Mirror
Bootstrapping Cambodia
Brian Stretch writes "This article in MIT Technology Review left me in awe. "...remote village schools, jacked into the world's online knowledge... Who can help these schools bootstrap, and bring them up to speed with computer skills? The amazing answer turns out to be--orphans.""
Let's work on the important stuff first.
as long, of course, as it doesn't mean me giving up what I've got. ;)
And what's with all the anti-semites today? Hey, I don't go out of my way to associate with them, but keep it to yourself, alright? I know, IHBT...
More Jews = Worse country .
.
Less Jews = Better country
Quite right. Need any help packing before you move to Iraq? A ride to the airport?
I hear you can make wine from their blood
At least it's kosher.
More racist assholes = worse country
Less racist assholes = better country
Do your duty as a good American and kill yourself, you racist asshole.
I'm constantly amazed by how people think a computer and a T1 connection is the key to solving all the worlds problems.
I have to take jabs at reporters based on their afterwords, but:
Michael Hawley's column, Things That Matter, will look at how imbedded intelligence and networked computers will actually make a difference in daily life, following the collapse of the Internet hysteria.
This is a very, very subjective statement. Things that matter, that make a difference in daily life, can't be quantified by any reporter or any other single person claiming to
To many of the visitors to Slashdot, the existence of computer themselves provide a sort of meaning and pursuit. Who is to say that they are less important than schoolchilden in Cambodia?
That is actually what I was thinking would more likely happen. However, I was responding to a post where rebelcool stated "we should instead ship them PEOPLE". I was just pointing out to him that if there were people in the US he wanted to do teaching, they could reach more by using technology. For teachers, the cost would be much higher to send them over and support them than with enabling those same teachers to remotely advise local Cambodians to actually perform the work.
I love the people that criticise this type of thing. The idea is "why give them computers and schools when they need medicine and food?" My first question to them is "how much food have you given the starving Cambodians?"
I see the necessity of this type of thing. Education and technology are needed to break the cycle of poverty that keeps third world nations locked in their positions. There are other, quite good, organizations that deal with medical aid and hunger relief.<BR><BR><BR>
My other question is, how does this story have anything to do with Judeism, the Aids virus, or the Holocaust? Several ACs are spouting blatant anti-semitic slurrs, for which there is no excuse. Slurrs don't accomplish anything other than lowering the level of intellectual discourse. then Mr. sales_worldwide is posting random links to www.ihr.org and www.rethinkingaids.com, organizations i find questionable, but they certainly have their right to express their views. BUT, these have nothing to do with the article, which, if anyone remembers, is about a program in cambodia to build schools and train orphaned children to use computer technology!!! I've seen some bad posts on Slashdot, but most of this crop really takes the cake.<BR><BR>
/end irritated rant.<BR><BR>
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
There's an great writeup by eries at kuro5hin about this issue. It also has a very interesting poll accompanying the article on how many k5ers would be willing to donate to the cause.
Next year, 13 year old Bgot Thai says, "Last year my belly was swollen with hunger, but we ordered genetically engineered seeds from some place in America over the internet, and now my people and I are fat from our largest harvest ever. After the village elders read some public health sites on the Internet to learn about marlaria, they drained the swamp next door and no one gets marlaria anymore. Why, we even found a site on the internet explaining that we get cholera because we traditionally poured out shit in the same river we drank out of, so we don't do that any more and now we're healthy. Knowledge is power. Thank you, america"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
um, the Normans were Vikings, not French.
Lets help them out then, start a slashdot fund for building a school. We donate our money for things like legal defense and advocacy, why not help kids learn.
Get involved
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
>Education and technology are needed to break
>the cycle of poverty that keeps third world >nations locked in their positions
Exactly!
Having lived and taught programming (+ English) in Myanmar a neighbor of Cambodia's, I can tell you that there are some very important things that computers are necessary for even in the poorest of countries...
1. Designing buildings and other structures (CAD).
2. Printing books (Desktop Publishing).
3. Getting access to medical information.
4. Unquantifiable category: (Access to the whole gamut of mind opening information that is in western countries but not in poor developing countries.)
5. Advertising export products and tourism (foreign $'s = capital to develop)
6. Teaching problem solving skills
(Abelson and Sussman's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs")
The number of books that is being published in western countries each year may be increasing at an exponential rate, but few of them make their way to poorer developing countries.
Some of the most influential people in the future development of Cambodia will be the Cambodians who go to foreign countries, study there, get an advanced degree, and then teach generations of young Cambodians.(Pol Pot was a school teacher educated in France).
Internet access will allow future generations to be aware of the opportunities available and avoid recruiters who often prey on people who lack information.(This also goes for people who migrate to other people to work, e.g. Phiilipines to Saudi Arabia) Since academics usually put a lot of papers on line, they can also familiarize themselves with research.
What the article doesn't say is what kind of computer system he will end up using the skills he's acquired on: most likely Microsoft Windows
with some pirated application software like Autocad.
IMHO there's a great opportunity for members of the open source revolution to go over to these countries and show people how to
add value with Linux...rather than slowly become dependent on Microsoft.
> But the big problem today is that you need more than just a piece of chalk, a
> Blackboard and a teacher for a good education,
> you need to have computers and all sorts of High Tech devices
what else than a good teacher and maybe a few books does it take to provide good education? It never hurts to have a computer for a little bit of programming lessons, but by far the most important things we learn in school is writing, reading, and math. without these you can't even start to learn something new (apart from self-thaught geniuses).
> The same people who spawned the Canadians! (along with the dirty French)
Uh, you've got it backwards. The French spawned the British via the Normans invading/ruling over the Saxons.
As anyone who's been a teacher or TA knows, you learn far more from teaching than being a student.
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson
Caucho Technology
From the article:
I think if our underwear contains sensory power which links it with planetary information systems, the USENET will simply die out, since dick-sizing will lose its touch.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
I don't care whether or not a fellow is Jewish. I just don't like a big nose, as it signifies dishonesty.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But the big problem today is that you need more than just a piece of chalk, a Blackboard and a teacher for a good education, you need to have computers and all sorts of High Tech devices.
Bullshit -- you realize you are saying that there were no well-educated human beings before the advent of computers?
This 'Camobodian model' for getting school funding to rural third world communities is really excellent. I spent last summer teaching in a rural Nepalese village which faced similar obstacles in supporting education, and I wonder if a similar program couldn't be implemented there. Anyway, I'm going to plug my village: visit here to learn more about the school I worked at, the projects going on there in Nepal and how you can help.
The slashdot community is fairly politically active (or at least it seems to be in writing). Maybe it would make sense for CmdrTaco et al to set up some sort of official charitable slashdot fund which we can contribute to and whose benefactors we can vote on as a community somehow. It probably be hard or impossible to impliment, but I wanted to express the desire for such a thing. There are tens of thousands of us slashdotters, and at a buck or two each it'd be really, really easy for us to throw up a Cambodian school if only we could organize funding as effectively as we organize an online community.
Unfortunately, these Cambodian projects could never succeed without the thousands of dollars they get from contributors, money which consitutes a tremendous budget as far as a 3rd world nation like Cambodia is concerned. Obviously I concur that these stories do represent triumphs for villagers and NGO organizers--but it's naive to suggest that money isn't vitally important--absolutely essential-- to their projects, and doesn't play a key role in actually solving important problems. It always plays an essential role.
since the donations mentioned in the article also mention the world bank, try searching through www.worldbank.org and see if you can find a donation program that appeals to you. www.worldbank.org/wbi showcases some of the learning programs they've initiated. there's also gdnet.org, a side project of the world bank...
however, i couldn't agree more that water supply, sanitary conditions, and transportation are at the forefront of the concerns addressed by governments of those countries, and are normally the first funded by outside sources. however, the most interesting part of this article for me was the mention of selling local products on a global market level, and i feel that aspect will be the true success of this project - enabling people to earn the money to bring in the infrastructure, piece by piece.
it's an illustration of the classic adage - the difference between giving a man a meal and teaching him to fish.
you can't leave out the hundred years of colonialism and the bombing initiated by good old Henry Kissinger...that's just as bad if not worse, because the devastation cause by those two paved the way for the khmer rouge to gain the foothold that they did.
This article raises an interesting issue: where is everything going? It seems that venture capitalists will take any opportunity and accept it. They rarely profit, yet are constantly considered the future. It is time that some people should step back and look at the state of computing.
There exists in all areas of any country people who can be helped to learn. As important as it is to recognize the work that is being done by others to help in remote areas of the world, it is equally important to recognize that money easily donated is not the real answer. It is extremely easy to donate $25.00 and then go on with your life. An even greater impact could be made by taking a look around your neighborhood. Is their a community program which could benifit by recieving the greatest gift, one of involvement from people with knowledge and the time to share. If there is consider giving the time. If there isn't one allready then start one.
that donates computer equipment to impoverished villages, that the CEOs should be made to do some work for the Peace Corps first...THEN decide if a computer is what most of the world really needs.
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I just had to say that, seeing your email address
This is truly a crazy, mixed up world. Trolling with hate is pretty damn low, and it isn't very funny. Are you Vlad or Archie? Want to know something else that is crazy? I'm going to link to Jack Chick, and this time it's not for laughs:a sp
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1000/1000_01.
"Watch these suckers jump when I get root." - l33t j03
Check these people out as one example: http://www.wirelessisland.net
I'm saying that to produce people who are educated with relevance to the needs of industry today, you need computers (or at least, they are very helpful). Sure Plato was a clever guy, but could he get a good job these days with his qualifications? I would hazard that he couldn't. To produce the sort of people who will bring along the countries economy, you need computers and so on. At least, thats what I think.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
Yes, it is certainly true that you don't need high tech to teach. I'm just saying that you need high tech teaching methods to teach people to be good at high tech things, and to help spawn a high tech industry.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
Hello. What you say is very true. If you have to teach a subject, you have to know it inside out, so that you can answer questions from you students. I have done it myself a few times, but only unofficially. If they are doing similar in Cambodia, I should think it will be very successful, and also cheap. Third World children are usually a lot more willing to learn and enthusiastic about education than their pampered first world equivalents, because they *know* it is the only way they are going to get anywhere. If only our children had a similar attitude!
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
How's a pound-me-in-the-ass prison different from serving on a submarine?
You don't happen to work in accounting, do you?
Say, is there an accounting department at prison?
Remember to walk in the light.
I plead not guilty to seven counts of murder.
Edgewater Technology is everywhere.
Is there anyone hiding in the accounting office?
"He was a very nice guy. Everybody liked him," said high school classmate Kurt Schulter. "He was always in a good mood. This is completely shocking to me."
The victims were identified as: Jennifer Bragg-Capobianco, 29, who worked in marketing; Janice Hagerty, 46, a receptionist; Louis Javelle, 58, director of consulting in the company's Manchester, N.H., office; Rose Manfredy, who worked in payroll and would have turned 49 on Wednesday; Paul Marceau, 36, a development technician; Cheryl Troy, 50, human resources director; and 29-year-old Craig Wood, who worked in human resources.
You're with the angels now. May they love and protect you ever after. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your families during this time of loss.
Don't you think those accounting people deserved it?
yes, the emphasis is placed on computers because the west sells them but meanwhile the simple things to make children's lives better are not done, because people don't want to. Same here in Thailand. Most all the kids are doing chat at the cafe's but haven't a clue on how to use the internet to make their lives better, or if it even can.
Matthew McDaniel Maesai, Thailand http://www.akha.org
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
After all when the powers can be can define morality as they will there is very little reason not to kill people en mass.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
Actually, what I'd like to see is a
The particular goods I see arising from a /. charity effort are:
- Yes, we could all just try to go donate to the causes which please us, but it would be cool for
/. to get the credit as the entity which got us to cough up.
- Human nature is such that people who can only donate small amounts (such as students) often don't bother unless they see that it's part of a much larger effort. A sense of the collective might of
/. itself might motivate more people to give even if only a little.
- One big stumbling block to getting people to donate is the amount of trouble it is to do so. I know I am about 10^6x less likely to do anything which requires finding an envelop and a stamp. If there were a simple link to click on to do a pay-pal payment or some such, the odds of my participating go way up.
I would really like to see the amassed hordes of-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
If each of us gave *dollars* it could do miracles. And those of us lucky enough to live in well-off countries (*cough* US *cough*), instead of throwing our drops in the bucket and feeling good about it, what about actually doing something significant like *relieving foreign debt* that keeps poor countries in the vicious borrow-pay-principal-plus-interest-borrow-again cycle? It all leads back to that ugly thing that we all think we are completely above and detached from - politics.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Very true. Just about every nation in the region had real damage done to it by imperialism. There would not have been a Khmer Rouge, or a Pol Pot, without the efforts of imperialists and the fallout from the Vietnam War. But Cambodia faired in many ways worse than most. Vietnam had as many or more problems with foreign entanglements, but now has an economy and social order that is much better recovered. Pol Pot systematically murdered an entire generation of the educated and intelligent people of Cambodia. The actions of the West certainly left the nation ripe for his plunder, but I doubt anyone could have imagined the level of carnage that took place under the Khmer Rouge. The Communists literally emptied the cities of Campbodia, and systematically killed almost every member of the educated classes, from college professors and business people to Buddhist monks and nuns. It's one reason why educational programs like this are so important in Cambodia; these people are effectively missing an entire generation of educated leaders, not to mention that areas of the country have been out of contact with the rest of the world up until the past 5-10 years. The monk Mahagoshananda began leading peace marches in Vietnam in the past years, and in many case his procession of monks and peace advocates were the first contact that some villages had had with the rest of the country since the start of the reign of the Khmer Rouge. New species of large mammels (some the size of cattle) have gone undiscovered in Cambodia up until the past 3 years because parts of the country were effectively cordoned off by left over Khmer fighters, land mines, and destroyed infrastructure. So while imperialist interferance has played a big role in bringing Cambodia to its present state, I would still say that the bulk of the blame for Cambodia's rough economic and educational fortunes lies squarely with the Communist government of the Khmer Rouge.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
I was using the term Communist descriptively and not perjoratively, in my own mind, at least. I don't think that the KR were bad because they were Communist. They were bad, and they were communist. I was sticking Communist in there because I didn't want to type Khmer Rouge that many times. I don't think that I ever imply that the most important thing about the Khmer Rouge was that they were communist; the post mentions Communism only twice, I think, once in place of "Khmer Rouge", and once as an adjective. I'm not sure how you are reading a focus on Communism into what I wrote. What to you seems to say that I think the most important attritute of the Khmer Rouge was that they were communist?
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
What I meant was that the Khmer Rouge were not bad because they were Communist, they were bad because they killed many people and destroyed the country. If they were Communist and peaceable, I would have no problem with them. The writer of the earlier post seemed to imply that my problem with the Khmer Rouge was that they were Communist. But to me it is the action that is objectionable, and not the philosophy used to justify it. I do think that Marxism provided justification for the actions of the Khmer Rouge, but Marxism did not dictate it. So my point is just that even if the Khmer Rouge were motivated by some other ideology, I would find their actions just as objectionable, and place most of the blame with them for Cambodia's current state. Now, of course, the actions are greatly inseperable from their motivations, but that is an argument for a history class somewhere. . .
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Boosting self esteem...thats awesome. This is a great example of how other countries can be competitive with america without aggression.
.vbs?
A competitive system is better for everyone involved and does not subtract american prominence in worldly affairs. We already exist in subclasses and groups of every nationality. Will skills in Cambodia be called for in the states? How will our own commerce support developing nations? Will we invite them here, or work with them from afar? Should we support aggressive developing nations? What if a charity breeds a small fleet of khmer outlook hackers, experts in
I am way too paranoid. Those kids sound cool and ready for input. Long live technology!!!!!!!!
-Sleen
(Posted at +2 to make a point.)
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/ \ ASCII ribbon against e-mail
\ / in HTML and M$ proprietary formats.
X
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
So, they develop schools to get kids to stop working in sweatshops, and what do they do when they get there? They work for the schools. Not learn AT the schools, but they work FOR the schools.
I think having an 8 year old typing or otherwise demonstrating knowledge is a LOT better than having them sewing Nike sneakers or digging up DeBeers diamonds, but the distinction between schooling and working is still pretty vague.
[
This is somewhat along the lines of The Hunger Project, which is attempting to end hunger by empowering the people in those countries to improve their situation. (btw: when they speak of "investors", they're talking about people investing time and money to create a future of people self-sufficient and empowered -- not investing for a monetary feedback.
`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
But when these kids can't figure something out, there is a fetus in a tank full of amniotic fluid. He's the real wiz.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
But I'm really just basing that on faith. It's a guess. Is all the money, and all the children's time, a good investment? Will it help create a self-sufficient society? Or are the children spending so much time at school that they cannot scrounge enough food to get by, with little long-term benefit?
It's quite nice to donate money to make ourselves feel better (or so I assume; I'm a cheap bastard), but how do we find out what really works best?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Out there that allows individuals or organizations to donate technology or books to schools in impovrished nations like cambodia?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
12 year old Bgot Thai says "Even though my belly is swollen with hunger and my joints ache from malaria, I can now post on slashdot, until I become too weak to move my crippled fingers to type. Thank you, america"
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I couldn't disagree more. Tens of millions of tech illiterates make an honest living here in the US and we're, arguably, the most technologically advanced nation in the world. Certainly we're in the top few.
Third world countries need things that tech essentially doesn't matter for. Building roads, planting crops, arresting outlaws (we just posted a story on this on poliglut a few days ago which is why this story caught my eye on /.), digging wells, building sewers. None of these require high tech solutions.
So while I agree the method of knowledge dispersal makes a lot of sense, I disagree that you need high tech to teach.
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I am always inspired by the way people in extreme hardship manage to survive and even thrive.
In the USA, we believe that money can solve any problem, big or small. These kids are accomplishing something really big and learning alot without the big budgets of a suburban US school. My hat goes off to them!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I wonder if in Third World countries today this method could be used or even extended upon? These events in Cambodia sound like just the ticket, but they have extended it to even building the schools themselves. But the big problem today is that you need more than just a piece of chalk, a Blackboard and a teacher for a good education, you need to have computers and all sorts of High Tech devices. The only problem is that the only nations that have the education to make these things can get the money to do the education in the first place, so it is like a Catch 22 situation :(
I just don't quite know how third world countries can break into the cycle. See, I am not a global affairs expert!
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
This is a great program. Unfortunately, the article fails to mention Bernie Krisher, who started the program.
Follow the link from the article, it's a pretty amazing concept. US$14K buys you a new high-tech elementary school in Cambodia, with matching funds from the World Bank and donations from various multinationalcorps. Anybody know anything about this project? This is the first I've heard of it, and although having such remote donors leaves open the possibility of fraud, I think it's really exciting.
/.ers, instead hitting refresh on the SETI@home stats page all day, could each get together $14 for this. If anybody is interested in helping to organize such an effort, pleaes let me know.
Maybe 1000 Team
Can your IM do this?