This past Sunday 60 Minutes ran a feature on Negroponte and the One Laptop Per Child initiative. It was an update on a story they first reported in May. Link to the video: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2830221n Transcript text: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/main2830058.shtml The business/political dynamics at play between the One Laptop Project and Craig Barrett/Intel are interesting. The CBS report implicitly raises some profound questions about how oligopolies (here in the US. for example) can actually stifle technological progress and the diffusion of an innovation to the masses. I'm not a business analyst by any stretch of the imagination, but that was one of my takeaways. - Paul Paul DiPerna Blau Exchange http://www.blauexchange.org online ID: http://claimid.com/pdiperna ----- Original Message ---- From: Scott MacLeod <helianth@gmail.com> To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 9:28:28 PM Subject: Re: [Air-L] help on africa and computer donations Hi, Here's the keynote address by MIT Media Lab's Nicholas Negroponte about the One Laptop per Child or XO-1 initiative at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society this year on May 31 - http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2007/06/17/nicholas-negroponte-key.... In it , he tells how the initiative is proceeding, that this laptop will cost about $130, that it is basically ready, that they are targeting about 8 countries, and that one company built a new factory for them due to the scale of the project. It is primarily an educational endeavor. They'll use a mesh network that will work in remote locations. I'm not sure how they'll approach the language and literacy questions, from a partly engineering orientation. All of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society's media at Media Berkman is a rich resource. The scale and implementation of this project is impressive. Scott MacLeod See also wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_laptop_per_child On 8/27/07, nativebuddha <nativebuddha@gmail.com> wrote:
This student is looking for help. Any suggestions?
-robert
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Hello,
I am Alok Kotecha, a Computer Science major at the College of Charleston. I am working on a paper for my English 102 class that is based mainly on donating computers to the developing nations of Africa, mostly Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique & Zambia.
My main argument is that developed nations donate technology such as computers to these counties with the aim of technologically advancing the nations, however they do not consider the fact that donating computers is not the main thing to be done at this stage.
Below are some other arguments that I address in my paper:
1. Lack of infrastructure e.g. very few people have telephone lines and this will stop them from connecting to the internet. (Wireless connections are out of question in most places due to the high set up costs and regular maintenance required.)
2. Security would be a concern - High crime rates might mean that high security would be needed in order to protect computers from theft.
3. Language would be a concern as well - Operating a computer that interacts in English my be a problem for many people.
4. Health Care - Many people die everyday form malaria and other diseases. In these cases it is always a good idea to save lives first by providing better health care and medical services rather then donating computers.
Currently I have based my paper on statistics from UNDP and NYT articles, but because this is a very recent issue I am currently having problems finding more scholarly articles and I would appreciate any suggestions you can provide.
Thank you,
Alok Kotecha _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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