OLPC:News

The laptop is not for individual sale... Ministries of education will purchase, just like they do with textbooks... Or should they not spend any money for education?

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It's ridiculous! I live in africa and the last thing we need are PCs. Children here need food, water, medication, clothes- they need food so they wont die of hunger, get it?? A laptop is useless, and by the way, 100USD is too expensive for somenone who has no money to eat on.

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Answer,

as you see, dear african (btw: are you really?), your message here reached my bedroom in Italy today thanks to a pc (maybe a really really cheap one), isn't it?

--87.4.183.151 06:04, 17 March 2006 (EST) Francesco R. - Castelfranco Veneto - Italy

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Another Answer:

if the last thing you need in africa are PCs, will africa ever start needing them? Children need food, water, medication, etc. - this is true and the most important right now, but that is by far not the only important thing for the african future! Simply providing food, water, medication, etc. does never cure the underlying reasons for their lack. If we strive to provide only the basics it might help a bit immediately but will not sustain for too long... it tends to make things rather worse in the long run - it only deepens economic dependency. Of course that does not mean we should stop providing the basics though. But if you ask for limiting help to the basic priorities, you could therefore just as well ask for stopping all the help... sad but true. Africa needs all help it can get and on all levels to become independent, free and strong!

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Yet another answer: Empowerment and Self Help

Africa was colonialized as were many other areas of the world such as Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, ...Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. as well in more recent times Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria etc by the USSR. (Even the USA by England ..) Now that Africa is no longer colonialized and there is no "apertheid" what prevents its free nations from being on the road to self-sufficiency? That is a critical question every African must ask - and must demand creative and committed answers from its leaders.

Seems that without meaningful education and a feeling of empowerment by people the only African hope is await CARE packages from more dynamic and successful continents. That is a sad hope for the African continent. An initiative like OLPC can't solve Africa's chronic health and food problems. For that there are organizations like the UN, and even that is not the solution. Africa's, and any continent's and nation's, only real hope and escape from dire circumstances is self-help and forming local helping communities based on a strong sense of kinship. If these are missing there is no real hope.

Only Africans can help Africans. Others can apply band aid solutions.

OLPC can plant valuable seeds whose fruit will ripen maybe after a decade or more. Sometimes there are no quick fix solutions and often quick fixes tend to make problems worse.

L Pfeffer March 18, 2006

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Yet another yet another answer,

Quote from somewhere:

"Give someone bread, he eats for a day, teach someone how to make bread, he eats for a lifetime"

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The OLPC project is acting (in my mind) in a way that will free the emergency needs of Africa and similar in the long-terms. It is a long-term GREAT project. Instruction: 100$ to grant ACCESS, communication, and unlimited BOOKS. Future employment: open source software and culture is the emerging countries freedom. As you teach people to act the collaborative way, as you teach them they can do the same things investing on their learning curve and not in the major softwarehouse products, they will never be "computer slaves". This project was "saved" from having an OS-X based OS, and hardly attatched from Microsoft.

But... the need will be to prevent family from selling the laptops to feed themself!!!

Please, SELL these PCs in the first world, $200 each. With the earned money finance the project. I'd buy it!

Luca Vascon, Venice, Italy. March 18, 2006

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Vascon said: Please, SELL these PCs in the first world, $200 each. With the earned money finance the project. I'd buy it! ---- ---

--- ME TOO --Dagoflores 03:42, 19 March 2006 (EST) AGS MEX

I think MANY(1st world) people will buy it.

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Hunger and medical attention are the most needed, I agree. And trying to get gouvernments to stop violence and start respecting people's lives and rights. But while now being idle, the young generation is not getting any education, the African continent stands still in it's own developement and will not evolve into prosperity.

Forming it's own local networks and with free access to the internet, this generation can and will be educated. One has to learn how to read and write, otherwise you can't use the laptop. But even THAT can be done from this laptop. And after that, all is available at their own fingertips. And do not only think in ways of education, but specially in information.

Due to the developement of the internet and the free source of information, the first world has hurdled into the next millenium. Also the third world countries can start to close this gap and speed up their developement. The increase in free available information, will have a positive effect on the personal developement of people.

The current HIV and Aids crisis in African countries can be slowed down through the use of direct information. In stead of staying ignorant or being mislead by self-called healers, children will be informed of the real risks of non-protected sexual contacts. Parents will learn how to protect their children from the risks of infection.

People can look for solutions of local problems. What can be done about getting water to the surface? Where can I get a pump for my village?

In a later stage it will also have a positive side for the international Aid organisations and their workers. Instead of having to travel all over these countries looking for problems to solve, the information will directly to them. This will safe time and resources and therefore money.

But I agree with Luca Vascon from Italy. We have to prevent that these laptops are being sold. Or stolen to use as trade goods. The only way to do this, is make them so generally available, that it is not worth stealing or selling them.

I also would really like to have one. I am going to travel the world for a year and this laptop would be perfect to carry around. Developed for rugged situations and self-sustaining for power, so that I can use it everywhere. I would like to have more memory, but that cannot be that expensive. And I would pay for it as well. And for the $ 200, they can give away 2 instead of 1.

Richard Seinstra, Capelle aan den IJssel (The Netherlands) 21-03-2006

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Africa needs technology to leapfrog to suatainable development. Africa will benefit tremendously from this project.

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As an outsider, we always seem to have an answer... "the power of internet, education, exposure, communication etc etc....". We fail to understand what does an average African really needs. And believe me its not obvious. I guess we can all try, but the best answer would come from Africa itself. The laptop in itself is no good, we need to focus on software... i.e. the applications, the content, the course material... all that needs to be looked at, and then only we'll feel the true power of $100 laptop.

Prabhdeep, Montreal April 4, 2006

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I live in Vancouver BC. I'm quite lucky to reside in one of the high tech cities of Canada.

Consider this. Say the technology was taken care of and the laptop was to go for sale for $100. Is there any charity that would be willing to have 1st world families buy the laptop and have them shipped to countries with needs?

This could take care of the resource management (the money going to the corrupt government).

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I think this is a very good idea, I strongly believe in the power of education. But I also fear that many governments won't be willing to spend the money because of corruption and other issues. The idea of a charity buying the laptops seems a bit unlikely to me. How about teaming with a TV station and organizing a telethon to raise money? I think people would be willing to contribute to this project, especially because it's more tangible than other initiatives: the money made will be dedicated to the production and shipping of the laptops.

Diana, Madrid April 10th, 2006

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OLPC seems to be just one of many great projects to emerge of the MIT Media Lab over recent years that demonstrate intent to use the wealth of knowledge and resource available to the western world to help our less well off friends. Exploring this site however, while I can find believe that a $100 dollar laptop can be made and understand why laptops are great, I cant find a document that actually details the actual need, or attempts to answers many of the questions that have been raised on this page. Is there such a doucument available to the public?? Without wanting to knock a project which I'm sure has a rich future, it would be great to hear answers to some key questions:

How do you give a $100 laptop to a family who makes perhaps $1-5 a day?

How do you persuade aid agencies in the wisdom of paying for high complexity solutions to the developing world, no matter how inexpensive, when written into many of their mission statements is "to help the developing world help themselves" i.e. help them to decide what they need and help them build it?

Who is this $100 laptop specifically for? (country, average income, other facilities) - claiming that the light from OLPC is the brightest source of light in a cambodian family house prompts me to ask are we addressing the REAL problems...

I contributed to the KINKAJOU project with Design that Matters and took the idea to many international agencies in the UK and these were just the kind of questions I struggled to find answers for.

Keep up the good work

Gareth Sumner, Cambridge, UK. 15th April 2006