One Laptop Per Child

My school has tons of computers (my guess, around 250 for 1100 students) which is quite nice. Theyre all from companies as donations through a program called Computers for Schools, so we get lots. They don't really assist in learning in school though, because the teachers do that, because if it was left up to the kids they would be on addictinggames.com rather than working (as we always are) so selling PCs to third-world countries is pointless without internet, or processing power to do anything other than office stuff, but if nobody has a printer, why would you need to type stuff? The internet is the most important part of a useful learning PC, without it, its a waste.

 

there are quite alot here, all of them dells, we have like 4-5k pupils here, and there is a computer in every classroom (for the register) so i guess a fair number of computers, still i doubt more then 1 per 20

 

O RLY?

heheheheh


Yeh its a stupid idea. 3rd world countries need decent food/water/electricity, not some technological device designed to run off their crappy infrastructure. Improve the infrastructure don't work around it!

 

Well...

the aim probably wouldn't be to drop a laptop on a child starving in the middle of nowhere in Africa.
But there are many many countries that are one step up...that have food, shelter and basic Education, but no communication/computerisation.
I'm thinking large parts of India, China, Russia, South America, Middle America up to Mexico. Places like that.

Basically these are places that AMD aimes the PIC at.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/ConnectivitySolutions/ProductInformation/0,,50_2330_12264,00.html
http://50x15.amd.com/

I realize that PIC and OLPC don't have quite the same goal...but i think they would complete eachother.

The OLPC is aimed to be much cheaper than the PIC though, and as it wouln't be a lot less powerfull, it'd probably replace the PIC, at least for the AMD 50x15 Initiative.

Cheers,

Xir

 

I can see where you're running with this, but it doesn't help to know where Germany is on a map if you don't know if you're going to eat that day or not.

Aid supplies are very often hoarded by richer dictatorial elites, so if our current ways of distributing food and medical supplies fail, what makes us think that we can distribute enough laptops?

Yes, an educated population may very well question their oppressed governments, but what are they going to do? Protests and signs are no match for bullets. Priority one is feeding people. Doesn't help if you can read if you can't eat.

 

Indeed! It's unbelieveable that among all those big companies who're developing this not one of those boffins thought of that. Maybe you should ring them up and tell them, save them a few pennies.

On the other hand, maybe they did think of that. Maybe the plan is to distribute these laptops to kids in africa who live in relatively stable areas of Africa, but who just cannot afford and education, or cannot afford much of one.

I dunno, maybe you should give a quick ring to the companies just to make sure eh?

 

stop for a second...

okay... many valid points have been raised for both sides of the argument... forget all of that for a second and step back...

imagine a new global network. GLOBAL in the actual sense.

-the majority of systems in use all running the same OS and all using virtually identical equipment.
-easily networked, low power consumption, market flooded with STANDARDIZED parts
-FREE/OPEN SOURCE software

-OLPC for lack of a better term gives an interesting starting point for the learning curve

in the long run, if it is a successful project, the world population becomes more educated, possibly better organized... we've all seen eastern and western culture merging for decades... there is alot more culture out there that will be assimilated, albeit within a standardized framework...

whether it works or happens or what, it isn't the actual project that matters, but the idea

of course, it all sounds slightly utopian, but that's okay... as cheezy as it is, think about how things would be if the rest of the world was suddenly on "equal" footing with the Free World...

it might be interesting to chat with a massai tribesman and a siberian villager about canadian healthcare someday...

enough rambling...

i love bit-tech!!

 

Of course, that brings up an issue. The language barrier. The internet (mostly english) is not going to help some child in India who can't read or write in his own language, let alone english (supposedly the hardest language to learn in the world) so what good is that to them? Unless some verbal-translation software is included, people won't get much use out of a laptop.

 

However in the modern world, your going to rapidly have problems if you don't know English

Bill gates succeeded where the British empire failed

 

Ok, firstly, there is a hell of a lot more to the internet then the English bits. The internet is very much seperated into languages, but just because you don't see them doesn't mean the other bits don't exist.

Secondly, India is an English speaking country(the biggest in the world by population). You should know that.

Thirdly, just because a lot of the internet is in English does't mean people can't get much out of it. So long as there are people working on Chinese, Arabic, Italian, Portogeuse etc. versions of sites like Wikipedia, the internet has a massive purpose.

 

It look's like a toy from Hasbro.

 

Ok, some good points, although I don't think I should know India is the biggest english speaking country in the world.

I'm talking more about the little languages. Not Arabic or Chinese or something, but tribe languages and the native languages of Africa and places like that.

 

Well, to take my India point a bit further. There are around 20 regional languages in India, from what I understand most people speak English and the traditional regional language. Give out computers to people and yes, they might go to the Urdu parts of the web, or they could just check out the Englsih bits. Options are generally more common not less.

Africa is in a similar but less developed situation. English and French are spoken by a large number of the 850M people. There are in the region of 500 regional languages and only 60 countries, so most have adopted an extenally developed common tongue(English, French, and Arabic being the most common I believe). You're correct that in some situations there would be a problem but I'm sure software that works irrespective of the language the person speaks when they start using the computer could be developed, given the strength of some of the big names behind this project. Even if not, the problem isn't as bad as you might think at first.

 

I agree, the kinks would be worked out over a few years. If people really want to learn via the internet, they will probably be willing to learn a major internet langauge if they didn't speak one already.

 

I hate to point out one thing.. Seeing that this OLPC launches is good, but what about the religius fanatics, regime leaders and the likes, that most likely will use this as a method of "education". This is not limited to Arabic speaking people, i.e. those that believe in the Koran and such, but if someone high enough up the regime's ladder thinks propaganda and finds a way to broadcast that onto these OLPC's, we'll have a major problem... Maybe it's just me being paranoid..