100 Dollar Laptop Stunt
Playing the devil’s advocate - why do these pictures look to me more like a publicity stunt than anything else let alone help for the third world.
For sure: The digital devide is a threat to our current society and the 100 dollar laptop is a nice and beautiful attempt to do something against it. But isn’t this idea a bit too idealistic, quixotic maybe even naive?
I mean at least looking at the school building which holds around 150 pupils should make you suspicious:
There is no sign of electricity let not to mention an internet connection. Looking at the inside of the classroom
still no sign of any electricity. Instead you have this smartly dressed dude from the western world with his shiny 100$ Prada belt explaining with the upraised digit how this shiny green fisher price device will solve all their problems.
I mean look at this image…
… this would even cause problems in modern western auditoriums. How can you possibly supply that many computers with electricity if there is not even enough electrical power to run a refrigerator in a hospital!
This somehow smells like a publicity stunt. A short one as well. 3 hours maybe - until the batteries run out of power.
on April 16th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
I’ve been waiting for some sort of substantive report from this deployment. I was surprised they didn’t have daily videos. I suspect you are right that this was just a photo op. The laptops got packed back into the Landrover when the prada-belt dude left.
I’m not sure you are right about the lack of electricity though. Go back and look at the photo essay again. The building in the first photo isn’t the one where the laptops were deployed. The windows don’t match up with the interior shots, and the construction differs from the building in the photo where they show the satellite antenna. Also, I think there may be the end of a bare florescent tube in the upper left of the second photo.
on April 16th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Eas,
What a good catch, you’re right, that building isn’t the school. And we can build a whole new school before we get detailed data out of OLPC. They like Open Source software, but aren’t open source about much else.
on April 16th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
One Laptop Per One School’s Nigerian Children
Khaled Hassounah introducing OLPC X0
By now I am sure you’ve read the C|Net article about OLPC Nigeria where Khaled Hassounah is shown introducing the Children’s Machine XO to eager students in a one-room school.
Were you in awe of the accomplishmen…
on May 29th, 2008 at 1:15 am
I have used one of these pcs and they are no laughing matter they use very little power and they will at some point wind up. This is a humanitarian aid poject and education is the only way for these countries to pull themselves out of povert. Much of Africa has cell phone coverage and does not have land lines. I live in a place where there isn’t cell phone coverage so in a very real sense they are farther ahead than some of the united states. Much of africa doesn’t have power but does have internet. The OLPC also can connect to another of these units creating a mesh network. Only one pc needs to connect to the internet. One should always become informed before attacking a product or a group of people publicly.
on November 9th, 2008 at 1:01 am
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on November 13th, 2008 at 2:14 am
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