Comments on: OLPCs: if you were leader of a 3rd world country, would you buy them?

By: Ruth Langstane

Ruth Langstane — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:19:07 +0000

I think that you raised an interesting issue. Reading the OLPC wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$100_laptop) I found a paragraph that disucess the ‘Effective use of money’. Apparently, at the UN conference in Tunisia, several African officials were suspicious of the motives of the project and claimed that the project was using an overly American mindset that presented solutions not applicable to African problems.

One of the officials stated stating that clean water and schools were more important.

By: Win Bent

Win Bent — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:20:07 +0000

“Otherwise it’s just an WLAN, surely?”

Yes, that’s true, but I wouldn’t use the word “just.” I can easily imagine a classroom full of kids with these laptops, connected into one or more WLANs (the OLPC term is “mesh”), doing all sorts of collaboration and interaction and horseplay – it’s truly an exciting educational opportunity, even without access to Google or Wikipedia.

As to the question of whether it’s a “good purchase,” I’d have to say that it’s got all the pluses and minuses of any first-generation hardware/software… and *someone* has to be the first! My congratulations to Peru for taking the plunge.

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:46:22 +0000

Hi Luc,

this was probably my most obtuse blog post ever, but my point was that with all the enthusiasm and hype surrounding the OLPC, it’s worth questioning whether the 1st generation OLPC is definitely a “good purchase” for all the countries it’s intended for.

By: lucmars

lucmars — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 11:55:23 +0000

I don’t understand where you’re going. What’s a nice leader? Do the men in shiny suits are nice too? What do you mean by “nice”?

Like every other aid to the 3rd world, the OLPC can be a major waste of money rather than a success. But you can’t prevent a leader to use this project as a way to get more funds and influence

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:45:38 +0000

I’ve never understood how the internet aspect works. In a village, surely somewhere there must be at least one fixed internet connection for the wireless mesh network to connect to. Otherwise it’s just an WLAN, surely?

Where would these internet connections suddenly appear from? Who would pay for them? If the OLPC is going to be internet enabled, the running costs for a whole country of kids would be huge!

By: Panu

Panu — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:34:57 +0000

You’ve left out option 4: buy a load, sell them at a mark-up on ebay, buy more OLPCs, rinse and repeat until you have lots of money and OLPCs!