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."

Comments

Sure

[Dunbal]

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.

Re:Sure

[rvw]

So true! People only think of Africa and the Third World as if over there everyone is so poor they're starving to death, or they're fighting and killing eachother. This is the picture that's in the news. But this is only a small part of the truth. Many people in Africa have a good life, although maybe primitive in our eyes if they don't have proper roads and cable tv and microwaves and cell phones. But if they have a house, a proper meal, clean water and electricity, they have a good basis. Small businesses, students, schools, they all can profit from these laptops, whether they cost $100 or $150. So this laptop is not meant for homeless kids who sell it immediately for some food or glue, but it is a way of introducing kids and adults who have a basic standard of living with new technology that can really help them.

Squeak in Extremadura

[trinomial]

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.

Re:it will work if...

[cloricus]

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.