September 24, 2007
Buy a Laptop for a Child, Get Another Laptop Free
By STEVE LOHR
One Laptop Per Child, an ambitious project to bring computing to the developing world’s children, has considerable momentum. Years of work by engineers and scientists have paid off in a pioneering low-cost machine that is light, rugged and surprisingly versatile. The early reviews have been glowing, and mass production is set to start next month.
Orders, however, are slow. “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written,” said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the nonprofit project. “And yes, it has been a disappointment.”
But Mr. Negroponte, the founding director of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, views the problem as a temporary one in the long-term pursuit of using technology as a new channel of learning and self-expression for children worldwide.
And he is reaching out to the public to try to give the laptop campaign a boost. The marketing program, to be announced today, is called “Give 1 Get 1,” in which Americans and Canadians can buy two laptops for $399.
One of the machines will be given to a child in a developing nation, and the other one will be shipped to the purchaser by Christmas. The donated computer is a tax-deductible charitable contribution. The program will run for two weeks, with orders accepted from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26.
Just what Americans will do with the slender green-and-white laptops is uncertain. Some people may donate them to local schools or youth organizations, said Walter Bender, president of the laptop project, while others will keep them for their own family or their own use.
The machines have high-resolution screens, cameras and peer-to-peer technology so the laptops can communicate wirelessly with one another. The machine runs on free, open source software. “Everything in the machine is open to the hacker, so people can poke at it, change it and make it their own,” said Mr. Bender, a computer researcher. “Part of what we’re doing here is broadening the community of users, broadening the base of ideas and contributions, and that will be tremendously valuable.”
The machine, called the XO Laptop, was not engineered with affluent children in mind. It was intended to be inexpensive, with costs eventually approaching $100 a machine, and sturdy enough to withstand harsh conditions in rural villages. It is also extremely energy efficient, with power consumption that is 10 percent or less of a conventional laptop computer.
Staff members of the laptop project were concerned that American children might try the pared-down machines and find them lacking compared to their Apple, Hewlett-Packard or Dell laptops. Then, in this era of immediate global communications, they might post their criticisms on Web sites and blogs read around the world, damaging the reputation of the XO Laptop, the project staff worried.
So the laptop project sponsored focus-group research with American children, ages 7 to 11, at the end of August. The results were reassuringly positive. The focus-group subjects liked the fact that the machine was intended specifically for children, and appreciated features like the machine-to-machine wireless communication. “Completely beastly” was the verdict of one boy. Another environmentally conscious youngster noted that the laptop “prevents global warming.”
Still, the “Give 1 Get 1” initiative is mainly about the giving. “The real reason is to get this thing started,” Mr. Negroponte said.
He said that if, for example, donations reached $40 million, that would mean 100,000 laptops could be distributed free in the developing world. The idea, he said, would be to give perhaps 5,000 machines to 20 countries to try out and get started.
“It could trigger a lot of things,” Mr. Negroponte said.
Late last year, Mr. Negroponte said he had hoped for orders for three million laptops, but those pledges have fallen short. Orders of a million each from populous Nigeria and Brazil did not materialize.
Still, the project has had successes. Peru, for example, will buy and distribute 250,000 of the laptops over the next year — many of them allocated for remote rural areas. Mexico and Uruguay, Mr. Negroponte noted, have made firm commitments. In a sponsorship program, the government of Italy has agreed to purchase 50,000 laptops for distribution in Ethiopia.
Each country will have different ideas about how to use the machines. Alan Kay, a computer researcher and adviser to the laptop project, said he expects one popular use will be to load textbooks at 25 cents or so each on the laptops, which has a high-resolution screen for easy reading.
“It’s probably going to be mundane in the early stages,” said Mr. Kay, who heads a nonprofit education group, whose learning software will be on the XO Laptop. “I’m an optimist that this will eventually work out,” Mr. Kay said.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
My friend Michael isn't as sold on the XO $100 laptop as I am. His gripe is that kids in the Third World need food to eat, water pumps that work, can openers, pencils and paper.... What follows is my reply to his email to that effect, which was also copied to a couple of other interested parties who are part of this conversation.
My friend Steve Popper travels the globe purchasing lumber. He says that traveling from the airport to his meetings in the third world is horrendous - the poverty is so incredible, he doesn't even like to look out the car window. So a few years ago he and his family established a school in a village in Haiti. He figured, "Hey, there's no school; that's why these kids will spend their whole lives in penury. Let's fix that." Steve's upper-middle-class; I think a school in Haiti is pretty affordable.
The problem is that the kids didn't learn much in their new school. The reason? They were hungry. I can't pay attention if I'm late for snack time. I can't even imagine what it's like for kids who are actually starving. So Steve did some research and found Kids Against Hunger. He brought it to our Rotary club, and in less than a month, in two events he - and a few hundred of his closest friends - packaged over 600,000 meals. About half went to the poor here in SWFL, the remainder to Haiti and Jamaica - the poorest parts in the South of Jamaica, hit worst by Dean. To avoid pilfering (99% of foreign aid to Haiti is stolen, mostly by the gov.), we sent the meals to Rotary clubs in the villages where the food is needed. We have 8 more packaging events lined up this season.
Poor people need food. And fresh water, and shoes, and $.01 drops of medicine to fight ringworm, and affordable (but not free) condoms, and mosquito netting.... People need education and micro credit, too, so that they can take care of themselves, rather than hope that the largess from America continues unabated. My vote is, if this guy or that group is passionate about one of those things, then why tell them to wait until other needs have been met first? Steve wants to feed kids, I want to give them laptops, and Michael wants them to have can openers. They need all 3, so good for all of us! By pursuing what inspires us most, we'll each be more effective and we'll stay engaged longer.
Now, to introduce Tim Falconer: he is well ahead of me in his efforts to get the XO to the kids who need it. He and some friends (www.waveplace.com) are about to start a project with some XOs in St. John (the US Virgin Island). It's a small population - only about twice as many kids as Immokalee. And, like Immokalee, if you want to make a living wage, you have to leave to do it.
Waveplace isn't just going to buy laptops from MIT and hand them over to a bunch of kids, then split town. Their project includes teaching the children how to use the laptops, and really it's about teaching them effectively through the conduit of a laptop. Tim's idea is to train the children of the Caribbean, starting with St. John, to apply their creative talents to IT work, sourced all over the globe via the Internet.
Kids in poverty world-wide are physically removed from the teachers and resources they need to have an education that is every bit as good as, say, our two girls here in Naples. But with an XO and a Internet connection, these children can enjoy access to the best the world has to offer. My good friend and colleague, Tim King, who is running Coine Language School for us up in Boston, has done a lot of real-time tutoring over the years through an online course out of Taiwan. Because of the XO, kids in St. John will be able to have world-class teachers like Tim King at their disposal.
What a brave new world is this!
My friend Steve Popper travels the globe purchasing lumber. He says that traveling from the airport to his meetings in the third world is horrendous - the poverty is so incredible, he doesn't even like to look out the car window. So a few years ago he and his family established a school in a village in Haiti. He figured, "Hey, there's no school; that's why these kids will spend their whole lives in penury. Let's fix that." Steve's upper-middle-class; I think a school in Haiti is pretty affordable.
The problem is that the kids didn't learn much in their new school. The reason? They were hungry. I can't pay attention if I'm late for snack time. I can't even imagine what it's like for kids who are actually starving. So Steve did some research and found Kids Against Hunger. He brought it to our Rotary club, and in less than a month, in two events he - and a few hundred of his closest friends - packaged over 600,000 meals. About half went to the poor here in SWFL, the remainder to Haiti and Jamaica - the poorest parts in the South of Jamaica, hit worst by Dean. To avoid pilfering (99% of foreign aid to Haiti is stolen, mostly by the gov.), we sent the meals to Rotary clubs in the villages where the food is needed. We have 8 more packaging events lined up this season.
Poor people need food. And fresh water, and shoes, and $.01 drops of medicine to fight ringworm, and affordable (but not free) condoms, and mosquito netting.... People need education and micro credit, too, so that they can take care of themselves, rather than hope that the largess from America continues unabated. My vote is, if this guy or that group is passionate about one of those things, then why tell them to wait until other needs have been met first? Steve wants to feed kids, I want to give them laptops, and Michael wants them to have can openers. They need all 3, so good for all of us! By pursuing what inspires us most, we'll each be more effective and we'll stay engaged longer.
Now, to introduce Tim Falconer: he is well ahead of me in his efforts to get the XO to the kids who need it. He and some friends (www.waveplace.com) are about to start a project with some XOs in St. John (the US Virgin Island). It's a small population - only about twice as many kids as Immokalee. And, like Immokalee, if you want to make a living wage, you have to leave to do it.
Waveplace isn't just going to buy laptops from MIT and hand them over to a bunch of kids, then split town. Their project includes teaching the children how to use the laptops, and really it's about teaching them effectively through the conduit of a laptop. Tim's idea is to train the children of the Caribbean, starting with St. John, to apply their creative talents to IT work, sourced all over the globe via the Internet.
Kids in poverty world-wide are physically removed from the teachers and resources they need to have an education that is every bit as good as, say, our two girls here in Naples. But with an XO and a Internet connection, these children can enjoy access to the best the world has to offer. My good friend and colleague, Tim King, who is running Coine Language School for us up in Boston, has done a lot of real-time tutoring over the years through an online course out of Taiwan. Because of the XO, kids in St. John will be able to have world-class teachers like Tim King at their disposal.
What a brave new world is this!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Guest spot on OLPC
Wayan Vota was kind enough to post this for me: http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/donors/americans_help_olpc.html. Thanks Wayan!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
One Laptop Links
As I promised my audience at the Unitarian Universalist Forum this morning, here are some links to different sites with more information on my favorite project, the One Laptop Per Child Innitiative (OLPC).
Please note the second link. I found it just this minute - apparently, starting Nov. 12, you will be able to buy one XO for your child when you buy one for a child in the Third World. I know what Ayla and Maryn are getting for early & late birthday presents, respectively.
60 Minutes story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/main2830058.shtml?source=search_story
Donate or "Buy two, get one": http://www.xogiving.org/
MIT Media Lab's site: http://laptop.org/
MIT Media Lab's wiki: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home
An unofficial site dedicated to OLPC: http://www.olpcnews.com/
Please note the second link. I found it just this minute - apparently, starting Nov. 12, you will be able to buy one XO for your child when you buy one for a child in the Third World. I know what Ayla and Maryn are getting for early & late birthday presents, respectively.
60 Minutes story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/main2830058.shtml?source=search_story
Donate or "Buy two, get one": http://www.xogiving.org/
MIT Media Lab's site: http://laptop.org/
MIT Media Lab's wiki: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home
An unofficial site dedicated to OLPC: http://www.olpcnews.com/
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