Laptops for All the World's Children

12/25/2006

Laptops for All the World's Children

You are not born all at once, but by bits.
- Mary Antin

As founder of the One Laptop Per Child project, Nicholas Negroponte is aiming to bridge the digital divide by bringing computers to the developing world — in the shape of the $100 laptop. After a long development period, OLPC is finally shipping low-cost systems for school-aged children. While laptops have been distributed to children in Cambodia and plans are afoot to distribute them in Mexico, the Philippines, and Pakistan, some countries are resisting. For example, India and China have refused to participate.

Silicom.com conducted an interview with Negroponte about the successes and challenges of his initiative and here are a few excerpts:

What are your plans for China?
The problem with China is not the regime, it's Confucius — it's very top-down thinking. Confucius would never do this, it's much more hierarchical — the notion of learning through playing is not in that vocabulary.

Were you disappointed when India didn't decide to go forward with the project and the Indian education secretary Sudeep Banerjee said the project was "pedagogically suspect"?
I'm disappointed for them, not for us. I think you have to look further than they are looking. It's true that their numbers are daunting though.

How will you judge if the project has been a success — say, in five years' time?
We'll find out very quickly if it's been a success. The measure is the energy in schools. There's a village in Cambodia [using the laptops]… [where] there are twice as many kids registering. That's a good measure. That kind of measure — that's the best. Parent interest in kids' education is another.

Why do you think there's been a lot of negativity as well as optimism around the $100 laptop?
There's a lot of negativity that has come out of the UK. There are people who think refurbishing old laptops is the right way to help the developing world. You'll never see me go online and contradict that — anything is better than nothing, but it just doesn't work. Sending old computers is not the way to go.

People say if a child is malnourished, he doesn't have drinking water, he's sick, why do you want to give him a laptop? Substitute the word 'education' for 'laptop' and you'll never ask that question again. It's an education project not a laptop project. For people it's like the hazard of being a beautiful blonde — people pay attention to the wrong thing. It's almost an attractive nuisance. We were driven by the elimination of poverty. With building more schools, it would take forever and ever. What we're trying to do in the meantime is get more children to do more on their own.

Read the complete interview.

Exciting Job Opportunities!

Today the Exchange Job Opportunities service is promoting exciting job opportunities at Bright Horizons, Nike, Google, and the Tulsa Child Care Resource Center. Check out these job openings, or advertise your own, at www.childcareexchange.com/jobs/

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.