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$100 PC Pledges Fail To Meet Minimum

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the limits-of-generosity dept.

bobthemuse writes, "Nicholas Negroponte's $100 laptop PC was demonstrated back in May, and a PledgeBank was set up: the goal was to get 100,000 people to purchase an OLPC for $300, allowing the project to send two of the devices to the proposed users. Today the pledge ended and only 3,678 people had signed up." It looks like a mention in Slashback a few weeks ago gave a boost to the effort, but not a big enough one.

4 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Only if 99,999 other will too by rbarreira · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This was not an official initiative from the OLPC makers.

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    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  2. Frivolity by Dachannien · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think one reason why there's not much enthusiasm about this program is a difference of philosophies in how to educate the world's children. Generally speaking, people would rather spend $100 to buy books for a bunch of underprivileged children rather than spend it to buy one computer for one child. The applications of computers in grade school education in the US are kind of fuzzy, which makes it difficult to see how useful they would be in a less industrialized society.

    Besides all that, there are numerous other costs associated with making these laptops useful. For example, there's maintenance, theft replacement, training for teachers, and development of a standard computer-based curriculum. Many of these costs are recurring, which means that in the long run, these kids could be worse off from having so much money being tossed onto the bonfire trying to maintain a computer-based education program.

  3. Don't overblow it... by CptnHarlock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is NOT a failiure of the project itself. It's a failet net-pledge only. The goal of which was pretty unrealistic anyway. I still signed up though... :) ... one can always hope I thought. Anyway:

    This is NOT a failiure of the "One Laptop Per Child" project.

    Cheers...

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    $HOME is where the .*shrc is
    -- silver_p
  4. The whole thing failed for very sound reasons... by McFadden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We in rich countries don't give laptops to every one of our kids, yet we seem to think we can tell poor countries that this is what they need. I think of a dozen things that would benefit the poor way before we start thinking about fucking PCs.