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The Failure of the $100 Laptop?
RobertinXinyang writes "MSN's MoneyCentral has an article on the possibility that the $100 laptop project fails to meet its goals, and the potential of the project to harm people in developing nations. The article goes on to liken the project to 'good-natured showboating', and cites the unreality of a family using the glow from the laptop's screen as the only source of light in their hut. Perhaps there are better things to do with our time and money in developing nations?" From the article: "The entire idea may be misguided and counterproductive. At least that's what Stanford journalism lecturer an Africa watcher G. Pascal Zachary thinks. The basic argument is that with $100 you could almost feed a village for a year, so why waste that sum on a laptop? What are they thinking? The fact that these people need electricity more than they need a laptop is only part of the problem. The real problem is lost mind share. The people are harmed because these sorts of schemes are sopping up mind-share time of the people who might be doing something actually useful."
MSN's MoneyCentral has an article on the possibility that the $100 laptop project fails to meet its goals
Considering that this $100 laptop does not come bundled with a Microsoft OS, we can really expect impartial reporting from MSN.
a family using the glow from the laptop's screen as the only source of light in their hut.
I wonder if this writer has ever been to the third world. This is simply disgusting. Yes sure, everyone in Africa still lives in huts, and Eskimos live in igloos, etc. Careful, you may be eaten by cannibals while you're out there, too! While there still are some few extremely poor indiginous communities who lack even electricity, I doubt they would have any use for a laptop - even as a source of light.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1. First step - denial - "Bullshit, you won't produce 100$ laptop, is a vaporware, etc. etc. Better use those nice PocketPC with newest Windows CE!"
2. Second step (when real hardware is produced) - it won't work - "Yeah, nice hardware you have here...but know what, it won't help, it won't work for reasons it have been created. We know, we foreseen the future! They will sell it...emmm....(who would need such a crap anyway)...they won't find any use of it, they will trade it for food..."
3. Third step will be - never mind, you are there, let's copy you - "Huh, yeah, OLPC was a nice success, but see, we are better, because we worked on this device (half-baked copied attempt is shown), and it works much better. And there is Solitaire! Minesweeper! Word! All goddies! Buy us, please (sight)"
Microsoft way they see the world doesn't change. The same arrogance. The same "me, me, me" and we are much clever than others, therefore everyone should be steeling their IP...etc.
Microsoft, go fuck yourself. Let's see final results of trial in several countries and then let's judge this device. Probably all won't go smooth, but...
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
From the article: "And in today's world the real value of a computer is it being networked," says Zachary. "Finding a network in the poor areas is either impossible or very expensive." Obviously, the writer missed the point that these laptops are capable of forming wireless mesh networks in the classroom. Also, Squeak is being bundled with OLPC. See http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/squea k-in-extremadura/ for a nice video about what is already being done with Spanish school children.
Nigeria is also a country with reasonable cashflow - they're one of the largest oil exporters in the world. They also recently finished paying off $10 billions in loans and negotiated debt relief for another $18 billion. The $10 billions were paid off with increases in their oil revenues thanks to the rising oil price, and was paid off as a requisite for the $18 billion in relief. So thanks to the oil price they've got billions more tax revenues AND they've massively cut their interest rate payments.
They are paying for these machines themselves because they think it is useful to improve education, and they can afford a million or two with just a month or two worth of the increased revenues.
It is also a tiny investment compared to what Nigerians themselves are spending on cell phones: Currently there are more than 20 million cellphones (population of 130 million). Practically ALL of those have come in the last 4-5 years, and Nigeria has one of the highest cellphone growth rates in the world - miles ahead of the US for instance - and is rapidly catching up to the cellphone penetration in more developed countries.
I read an article recently on Microcredit and, while its too early to say if it will be as successful as its proponents claim, the early experience seems to make it seem like its a phenomenal tool for fighting poverty through the initiative of the poor themselves.
That fact that its taken so long for something as successful as Microcredit to come about underscores how little we know about the people we are trying to help -- and how difficult some of the problems are to solve.
I think most Americans would consider most South American countries as having significant urban areas and populations, though we do think you watch to many telenovellas.
But nontheless, if you provide people with an outlet for feeling like they are making a difference to the world - be it correct or not - chances are they won't search for another one. This here is an example.
These computer engineers and scietists you speak of are clearly so eager to use their expertise to help the people of Africa that they have missed the big picture. Making software for current charities would be vastly more useful.
I wonder if someone would compare how many resources are "wasted" on OLPC versus, say...Vista?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I've also been working with developpement programmes in Africa for quite a few years now. Mostly francophone sub-saharan regions. I don't know of any area there where US$100 could feed a village for a year.
;-)
There is a large "middle class" in Africa. Many people live in adequate homes, they have jobs, they have a reasonable level of education, electricity as reliable as the national network, basic levels of health care. They have money, not huge amounts by western standards, but enough to live well by local standards. Africans love to show off their wealth. After they have their neatly painted house, a car, some nice clothing, they look further down Maslow's hierarchy for where to spend their money. What every one wants are flashy consumer electronics. Most have mobile phones. Many have computers, TVs, VCRs and DVD players, and satellite dishes. What they are all screaming for right now is internet access. Just having access to email from their home is a way of not only showing off wealth, but showing a touch of modernity.
I helped a group set up a wireless network a while back. Every time one of their guys came up to Europe for a meeting or vacation, they'd head back down with two suit cases full of Linksys routers. We had found them a good bulk rate of about 30 euros per box. They had good technicians back in Africa who would reflash with OpenWRT, combined with some home crafted antennas, then they would set up relays across their country, radiating from the capital along major highways out to villages and wealthy sub-divisions. The wealthy would pay to get a flashed linksys box and an outside antenna setup, just to upstage their neighbors. Internet access outside the country would be just a trickle, but P-2-P inside the wireless network ran at reasonably good speeds.
Young people in a poor village in Africa are no different than anywhere else
You are right. There are cyber cafés everywhere with a small LAN, and every evening the places are full of kids playing counterstrike
I'm constantly amazed at the perception in Europe and the U.S. that Africa is mostly mud huts. There is wealth there, much of it from petroleum and mining, and as the education level comes up, outsourcing/globalisation is adding to local economies. Yes, there are some extremely poor people in the rural areas, but as long as their farms don't fail they get by well enough with sustenance levels.
I came to this thread hoping to get in a flamingly indignant post about the wrongness of the article, but I'm glad that many other slashdotters have already covered it for me. Kudos.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
If your goal is to allow people to develop a sustenance level of farming, growing food to feed themselves, farm subsidies on the other side of the planet are meaningless.
Part of the problem is the idea that everyone should grow rice or wheat and sell it on the global market, rather than growing locally native crops to feed themselves.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
All the good intentions in the world won't amount to a hill of beans because if you give them the laptop for free, it will be sold or traded away at the first opportunity. The whole project is an incredibly naive "if you build it, they will come" idea. The nations that are being targetted by this project are so far from your "marginal return" benchmark that it could be decades before it is reached.
On the other hand, the fact that the OLPC project exists, and is generating such controversy (at least on /.), is likely to have the effect of increasing the amount of food money donated. People who don't like OLPC obviously won't donate anything to the cause, but because they have been asked to donate to one cause, and in particular one that has caught their eye, they will be more likely to donate to something that they consider more worthwhile.
/.ers heads the way one more piece of junk mail from the Food for People Without Food charity will not do.
If you provide people with an outlet that they don't much care for for feeling like they are making a difference in the world, then they are much more likely to search for another one. OLPC gets into
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Financial resources are in no way limited. Economics 101...Some one has to always be in a position to need some thing from some one else for our systems to work. Basically all of them rely on this concept. Why not at least make those we tread on daily (with or without our knowledge) have slightly more meaningful lives and give them one of the best resources around - knowledge.
As far as I'm concerned this is just Microsoft kicking a good project because of the injection of Linux it will bring to the developing world. And don't lie to yourself; if we really wanted to give help to these people we would do more than a token effort - and maybe this is one of those ways.
I ate your fish.
And what happened to Dvorak's and Zachary's mindshare while they were writing and commenting on this contrivance of an article? Note: $100 spent to "feed a village for a year" (if possible) doesn't give that village tools to further its own interests. Also, Dvorak freely admits that the holders of his opinion (him?) observe the world through the windows of five-star hotels. What does a night in your "research environment" cost, Mr. Dvorak? Enough to feed three villages for a year, give or take? If this program fails to meet its "$100 laptop" goal, it will do good for fewer people, but the deprecation of the goal itself does nobody any good.
Seriously?
"The real problem is lost mind share. The people are harmed because these sorts of schemes are sopping up mind-share time of the people who might be doing something actually useful."
What the hell? Why does he get to say what the people on that project are doing? I have no idea if it will end up being a good idea, and neither does he. All I know is that the amount that I was able to learn on a given day became basically unbounded on the day that my family got their first computer, and it's probably been the single most important learning tool I've ever used. That's why I became a programmer. That and because I get to make a lot of money for very little effort.
Still. This complaint is that the people making the OLPC could be doing something better. This coming from a guy who's spent HIS mindshare in life writing a bunch of occasionally-pointed articles (yeah, that's going to provide electricity more quickly, good thinking). It's easy to complain.
Now if it weren't Dvorak complaining - if my idol, Paul Graham, came out talking about how bad of an idea it was - I'd at least start to examine it. But if I listened every time Dvorak said something, I'd end up quite the idiot.
The economy will tell us whether this is a good idea. Not immediately, and it'll be an interesting example of a quasi-free market, since the only people involved in the market are about forty potential governments. Still, time will tell a lot better than MarketWatch.
-knewter
Why not at least make those we tread on daily (with or without our knowledge) have slightly more meaningful lives and give them one of the best resources around - knowledge.
..." saying.
Actually, there's a straightforward answer to such rhetorical questions. Much of the explanation for the abject poverty in many parts of the world is a local social/political system that keeps the people in poverty. And the main tool for doing this is ignorance. People in power tend to understand the old "Knowledge is power" saying, and maintain their hold by blocking general access to information from the outside world.
Those who object to the OLPC project are basically arguing for keeping the people in ignorance by maintaining their lack of access to knowledge.
Granted, people need food, shelter, medicine, etc. Giving such things does help them in the short term. But unless you can also fight the local power structure by giving the people access to information and knowledge, your charity is only short-term, and doesn't address the underlying problems. It's the old "Give a man a fish
Of course, the OLPC laptop isn't itself a total solution. It also needs the infrastructure to deliver information. Unless it is accompanied by the hardware needed for Net access, it won't accomplish nearly its full potential. So rather than discussing why we should give the people food and medicine, which existing relief organizations know how to do, we computer geeks should be discussing how we can also bring them Internet connectivity.
Along with the (linux-based) OLPC laptops, with their wireless mesh comm hardware, we need to find the local proto-geeks and supply them with (linux-based?) server machines that can function as gateways. And we need to figure out how to link those servers to the Internet. The best way would be to do what we can to help those local geeks manage it all themselves.
If we can pull this off, the local power structures won't know what hit them until it's too late. This is happening in places like China right now, where the local powers are fighting their rearguard actions against the likes of google and wikipedia, in the ongoing battle to keep their people ignorant. With a bit of effort, we can bring this to the rest of the world.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
the people are harmed because these sorts of schemes are sopping up mind-share time of the people who might be doing something actually useful.
This is the guns vs butter economics analogy. Like it, this argument is flawed. As cows can't make guns, most hackers aren't equiped to solve the hunger problem in poor villages.
Although I don't disagree that hunger is a greater problem than the lack of information technology, to say that work on both uses the same scarce resources, is perhaps a stretch.
I've done quite a bit of work in Northern Uganda on computing in humanitarian relief. I've developed a term for projects that look good to people with no field experience, but are inadequately tested (usually in the west, because it's cheaper than testing in the field) and doomed to failure from the start - "Developed In Geneva, field-tested In New York". I've never seen such a project succeed, and the OLPC project falls into that category.
Even if they solve the technical problems relating to price vs. surviving the hostile environment (laptops don't last long outside of offices anyway, and kids are going to drop it, spill sticky liquids on the keyboard, throw it at somebody they don't like, try to break it so they 'can't' do homework) the social problems are considerably harder to solve, harder to predict, and will vary more with geographical location. I can't think of all of the problems (that's what testing is for!) but here's a few examples.
What do you do when a child loses a laptop?
Do you get them a new laptop? People will develop a survival strategy of 'losing' the laptops, and selling them. Even if you can only salvage $5 from each one, that's a lot of money to the majority of people on the planet, and if they're effectively free large numbers of people will 'lose' their child's laptop. So you either need an endless supply of laptops, or you're eventually going to have to say "no".
What happens to the kid you say "no" to if all their textbooks are on it?
Between 1% and 10% of parents will be hostile to the scheme (some will think it's an attack on 'real' education, some will think it's an attack on their cultural beliefs, and some will just be the nutcases you get everywhere). What do the children of these parents do?
I've never been to Africa or Asia but I suspect that it may be more a matter of spots you visited. I've been to Peru and Mexico and some places in each country have very much the mindset you describe in Africa but those places tend to be real tourist traps. Beggars know the places to go to get the best money. You'll even see this to an extent in the U.S. Go to Salt Lake City during the LDS church's conference time. I've seen similar hotspots in Colorado Springs. It's far from universal in the U.S. and it's not even all over in those cities I mentioned but you will see it. A lot of people visit Africa expecting to see dirt poor people starving to death and I imagine that some there may play the part to get a decent profit. That doesn't mean that people can't provide computers in a smart way to help people...it just depends on how it's done and where.
Actually, the tourist traps were the places where I saw the most entrepreneurial spirit. To clarify my point on giving something for nothing, I was near the border of Mozambique and Zambia, where I met the owner of a small campground. He said that the Mozambiquians (?) were twice as productive as the Zambians, even though they were from the same tribe. His theory was that the Portuguese were only interested in stripping Mozambique of any resources that were available, and did not bother to set up any sort of infrastructure. Someone waiting for a handout in Mozambique most likely died of starvation. Meanwhile, in English Zambia, a colonial system was set up, where the Zambians were basically directed what to do all the time. Things got built without much local input, and operations were directed by the English. As such, the Zambians just waited for things to come to them, and never got much practice in doing things for themselves. I don't know if his theory is correct, but my experiences in former colonial countries indicate there is some truth here. I'm not saying that providing computers won't help, but giving them computers for free is not the way that I would implement this. There have been programs to donate bikes in Africa that have failed miserably because a free bike has no inherent value to the person receiving it. Even charging a nominal amount like $10 changes the attitude from handout to investment. A small fee, coupled with some training, would get you further than arriving at a village and handing them out like candy.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, what does this say about renewable power?
I urge you to rethink this: external information is a scarce commodity among the poor, as are education and keeping records. This is a potentially very useful tool on a small poor farm, to provide much-needed record keeping and information access. With a very modest investment in village infrastructure, the farm has access to information about weather, local government laws, and cash-free communications to family and relatives around the world.
Simple access to Google to look up "low cost birth control" and "AIDS" could save many billions of dollars of moneyy and human destruction, with much less interference of local religious and political forces.