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About LinkBacksThe New York Times has an interesting story on the efforts made to manufacture a $150 notebook.
Head on over http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/te...&ex=1165122000 and let us know whether you think the bargain basement price will catch on with S.Is
The New York Times has an interesting story on the efforts made to manufacture a $150 notebook.
Head on over http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/te...&ex=1165122000 and let us know whether you think the bargain basement price will catch on with S.Is
ive been following this project and have to say im skeptical.
i think bill gates quote from the article about assuming that its good for the third world is quite accurate.
the children involved dont have access to proper healthcare, proper nutrition or proper economic stability. Why then, is it beneficial to provide them with a laptop computer?
I keep on changing my mind about whether this is a good idea or not.
Right now, I think the truth is that I don't enough about the third world to come to anything like an enlightened opinion.
What is the case, though, is that the recent change of government in Thailand appears to have reduced the number of takers for the OLPC product.
The NYT piece says this,
Five countries — Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand — have made tentative commitments to put the computers into the hands of millions of students
But, according to a report two days earlier in bankokpost.com,
The Education Ministry has axed the ousted Thaksin Shinawatra administration's three pet projects, with a combined value of more than 10 billion baht, claiming that they were intended to win political support. Education Minister Wijit Srisa-arn said yesterday that the three schemes have been left out of the 2007 fiscal budget plan as they have little to do with improving the quality of education.
The three schemes are the one-notebook-per-child programme aimed at providing a cheap notebook computer for all primary school children, the distribution of 250,000 computer units and installation of a high-speed internet service at every primary and secondary school, and the essay competition scholarship funded by the two and three-digit lottery sale.
Bob
Because those laptop computers can keep medical records in small clinics, make stock control cheaper at local markets making for cheaper foods, and provide a boost to small businesses...Originally Posted by Steve B
Maybe.
surely it would be better to actually help them establish a better health system, a better infrastructure and give them more ambition to strive to grow as a nation?
Over a billion people earn less than a dollar a day. 2million CHILDREN are working the sex trade. 12million children starve to death every year.. I could probably go on for hours with figures like that with a little googling.
Somehow I dont think laptops should be a big priority for 3rd world countries myself.
Looks a bit like one of those toy laptops. Does it actually have Windows on it?
Has a version of linux the last I read.
Hmmm, probably a super light version of Linux then. All that laptop is is probably a big PDA, maybe with a little more CPU power
what were you expecting for £150? core2duo?
what, i think you are missing, is that if these help them become better educated, it means more doctors = better healthcare, and less children working in the sex trade because they can make more money as a result of the extra education they get from one of these.
education = knowledge = power = moneh, its quite simple really
and it runs red hat linux, so it cant be complete tripe
Well, I'm not saying that you're saying that this but does this mean that they will then leave Africa for better prospects in the west? If they were to, then its not really helping Africa as we're just stealing their brains for the benefit of the west.
If this is secretly the case which is quite possible, then when will the exploitation end?
Also, most importantly, who will pay for all these fancy looking things, no ordinary person could afford one of these in the third world surely, so I'd imagine the governments of countries within Africa will pay for them using loaned money?
As has been said before, as nice a gesture as it may seem, I think Africa needs to sort itself out first before it moves onto things like this.
I haven't really thought this through completely so excuse me if my comments are a tad half-baked
ah yes, i always wondered how the industrial revolution came about. it was that one laptop scheme they had back in those days. development of a nation should be taken literally, not some western aristocrats view of whats best.
could you imagine what would have happened to james watt if someone had come along and said "forget all that steam-powered bobbins, have some nuclear fission"
</cynic>
Can't say i'm too impressed by this.
Surely the money that each laptop costs would go much further in simply enhancing nutrition, mortality rates and general standard of living. Also what about the infrastructure for providing power to make these things work? If they can't afford food they certainly can't afford electricity.
This smacks of big corps trying to get an early foothold in africa.
I doubt it is about children at all. It is just a vast market that has not been explored yet. I am sure many of ppl involved in this project think they are doing something good for the 3rd World. Not many are cynical or honest enough to admit they want and they will sell laptops to corrupted governments that can't take care of social and economic issues of their nations...
If anyone wanted to help they could collect fully working 5+ yr computers that go to corporate skips every day in Europe
and in US, put them on pallets and expedite to Africa with a team of volunteer IT specialists.
Just my 2 cents
How else are we going to get emails as their parents have over 20 million dollars from various engineering projects and want to launder it using our accounts
I believe the money is better of being used to build the basics - Irrigation, Sanitation and also building the health care up in these areas as opposed to giving them laptops.
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