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Zuckerberg and Gates-Backed Startup Seeks To Shake Up African Education
theodp writes The WSJ reports an army of teachers wielding Nook tablets and backed by investors including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission to bring cheap [$6.50/month], internet-based, private education to millions of the world's poorest children in Africa and Asia. In Kenya, 126,000 students are enrolled at 400+ Bridge International Academies that have sprung up across the country since the company was founded in 2009. Bridge's founders are challenging the long-held assumption that governments rather than companies should lead mass education programs. The Nook tablets are used to deliver lesson plans used by teachers (aka "scripted instruction"), as well as to collect test results from students to monitor their progress."
That's why http://www.worldreader.org/ delivers hardened (they replace the shell with rubber), solar-powered eink Kindles. A single day out in the Sun (where the kids spend a lot of their school day, anyway) and it is good for 30+ days. The kids are trained for 2 weeks (with a "pet egg") on how to properly care for / handle fragile equipment before they are loaned the kindles during school hours. Each kindle comes stocked with over 1,000 educational books. The literacy rate *shoots up* in every area they deliver them, mostly in Central and East Africa. They have a *very* small operational budget, so anything you give them goes a *long* way (compared to most charities).
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
Small Part Native American here. Grandpa and mom are buried on the Res.
Not that my heritage should matter, but some people can't hear the message until they've decided what bucket to put the messenger in....
How is the way of life and/or world view of the Native Americans worth saving?
Same question for impoverished rural Africans?
We are having this conversation only because an objectively superior culture with an objectively superior propensity for technical development has built this amazing medium for our use.
My ancestors were excellent hunters, excellent farmers, and excellent stewards of natural resources. There are many things to admire and respect about what they did.
Ultimately, however, I'm glad I don't live in a house made of animal skin; I'm glad I have modern medicine; I'm glad my other ancestors - my white European ones - have shot themselves into space, and have opened a way for my children to someday get off this rock.
In many ways, Humans of all colors and shapes are still participating in the tribal violence that shaped native Americans and still shapes many Africans.
Some tribes are better run than others, with better results to show for it. Adapt or die.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Ladies and Gentlemen; the solution is not simply to provide kids with an education. We've got to shake up the constant warfare, dictatorships and starvation.
And there is a solution. It's called commerce.
Ladies and Gentlemen; I present the humble Volkswagen Beetle. The original I mean --the rear-engined, air-cooled one.
The tooling for the car exists in both Brazil and Mexico, where it's no longer made, so that is cheap to aquire. You then need to build a factory, which employs people, and you need to start building the car, which employs people. This builds the economy; which creates other businesses.
People then buy the car, and the car can be exported into other African nations. Furthermore, you stamp out parts for export worldwide, to countries where the car used to be sold, to those who still run them.
The car is perfect for Africa, where roads are not great, and the car is durable, simple, easy to repair, and cheap on gas. Its construction is some African Nation would raise the economy of the entire continent.
And then they can build their own schools instead of needing the money of billionaires.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Missionary work is ultimately what got native Americans.
Comparing Africa to the Americas is very misleading. Native American populations were decimated by Old World diseases. That didn't happen in Africa, where natives had long been exposed to smallpox, measles, etc. In fact, their greater resistance to many tropical diseases, which disproportionately killed white colonists, helped protect them. If you look at Africa today, the areas that are the most prosperous, are those areas where colonialism was deep and pervasive, leaving behind strong institutions, and economies linked to the wider world. The least prosperous areas are those with little colonial influence, especially isolated inland areas.
The biggest mistake they made was giving up their way of life and their world view.
The opposite is true. By any objective measure, those that gave up tribalism and adopted western ways, are doing the best. If you look at income, infant mortality, maternal mortality, violence, longevity, nutrition, literacy, health, sexual abuse, alcoholism, or any other measure you can think of, tribal societies are at the absolute bottom.