$100 Laptop Founder Nicholas Negroponte Says He Ignores Criticism of the Project





Video highlights: XO versus Classmate

The BBC News website visited Nigeria to see Africa's first large scale test of the XO laptop - a portable computer designed for the world's poorest children.

The One Laptop Per Child Project's so-called $100 laptop, also known as the XO, incorporates technology and software specially developed to cope with the inhospitable conditions found in many developing nations.

Comments

Beauty said…
People laughed at Seymour Papert in the sixties when he talked about children using computers as instruments for learning and for enhancing creativity. The idea of an inexpensive personal computer was then science fiction. But Papert was conducting serious research in his capacity as a professor at MIT. Awesome thinking for the period but American solutions may not work in Africa.

"It's an education project, not a laptop project." — Nicholas Negroponte but the adman's dream that hides behind "create a cause, not a business" is a cynical business model that may one day turn around and bite the hand that fed it.

We believe "Technology will Determine the Future of the Human Race" as presented by Lord Broers in his "The Triumph of Technology" during the Reith Lectures 2005. But my problem with this project is not about the technology which is remarkable; the missing bits are simply the social side of the system. Take water for example, the children we are about to educate do not have enough of it. The brainware lot that have collaborated on this project should focus on this problem and piggy-back on this to deliver OLPC. When is it OK to educate world's poorest children but keep them hungry?
12:14 PM
EKENYERENGOZI Michael Chima said…
Who are you?
Your erudition is so remarkable that I cannot but agree with your rationale on this Nicholas Negroponte's dream. But let the children have the laptops first and let the Nigerian government do the best to provide the three square meals and safe water they need to balance the equation of modern civilization in a competitive world.

If you give me the PC of my dream, I will use it to feed myself and even typing letters for the illiterates in my village for $0.20 per letter in Word and that would be enough to save the money to hire labourers to sink a borehole and also grow some food crops and cash crops to make ends meet and save some cash to open a computer literacy centre in my village.
Therefore, the OLPC is enough to transform lives in Nigeria.

Cheers and God bless.
2:41 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Addax Petroleum Announces Federal Government Approval of Nigeria Gas Utilisation Initiative

1 Aug 2008 14:21 Africa/Lagos Addax Petroleum Announces Federal Government Approval of Nigeria Gas Utilisation Initiative CALGARY, Canada, August 1/PRNewswire/ -- - International Consortium Formed for Investment in Gas Development - Including the Potential Monetization of OML137 Gas Addax Petroleum Corporation (TSX: AXC and LSE: AXC) ("Addax Petroleum" or the "Corporation"), together with its partners Chrome Oil Services Limited ("Chrome") and Korea Gas Corporation ("KOGAS"), announces today that it has received the approval from the Federal Government of Nigeria, for its proposed implementation of an integrated gas utilization project in Nigeria. Addax Petroleum has also entered into a heads of agreement with Chrome, a leading Nigerian oil and gas company, and KOGAS, South Korea's national gas company, forming an international consortium (the "Consortium") which, upon finalization of the necessary project development agreemen
Read more

Terrorist Attacks on America Before Osama Bin Laden Was Born : 1920 -2005.

Image
This is a record of all terrorist attacks in America and in countries with American interests and on American Embassies and citizens abroad. Osama bin Laden did not create the demons of terrorism. He is only one of the most diabolical and destructive of them all. The devil is the author of Terrorism in his capacity as the Son of Perdition and the father of chaos. It is very important to clarify these issues for the benefit of those who are ignorant and naive and have been jumping to erroneous conclusions. Terrorist Attacks (within the United States or against Americans abroad) 1920: septa. 16, New York City: TNT bomb planted in unattended horse-drawn wagon exploded on Wall Street opposite House of Morgan , killing 35 people and injuring hundreds more. Bolshevist or anarchist terrorists believed responsible, but crime never solved. 1975 Jan. 24, New York City: bomb set off in historic Fraunces Tavern killed 4 and injured more than 50 people. Puerto Rican nationalist group
Read more

Black Hole Caught Red-handed In A Stellar Homicide

Image
ABOUT THIS IMAGE: This computer-simulated image shows gas from a tidally shredded star falling into a black hole. Some of the gas also is being ejected at high speeds into space. Astronomers observed a flare in ultraviolet and optical light from the gas falling into the black hole and glowing helium from the stars's helium-rich gas expelled from the system. To see the computer simulation movie, visit: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/18/video/ Image Type: Scientific Visualization Credit: NASA, S. Gezari (The Johns Hopkins University), and J. Guillochon (University of California, Santa Cruz) 2 May 2012 18:14 Africa/Lagos Black Hole Caught Red-handed In A Stellar Homicide WASHINGTON, May 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers have gathered the most direct evidence yet of a supermassive black hole shredding a star that wandered too close. NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, a space-based observatory, and the Pan-STARRS1 telescope on the summit of Haleak
Read more