$100 Laptop
Here are my favourite features:
(a) Access to knowledge. I believe that every single problem you can think of - poverty, political conflict, environmental crisis - is solved through education.
(b) Energy-efficient. In addition to making this machine rugged and waterproof, they’ve reduced the power needs by a factor of 10! This means it can be solar or human powered. Instead of using LCD screens, they’ve gone for super bright LEDs which can be seen in different light conditions (which is more than I can say for my laptop!)
(c) Affordable. Currently being sold to governments at $178, the plan is to get the price down to $100 by end 2008.
(d) Peer-to-peer learning. Using its antannae (aka ‘rabbit ears’) each computer can act as a router so that if one computer is in range of an Internet connection all the others can share the access. In this way, the laptops work in groups and users can easily interact and share information with each other.
(e) Open-source software. Only. They’ve even rejected Steve Job’s offer of free Mac OS X to go for Linux because it’s open-source. Critically, local communities, and the children themselves can adapt and develop the software.
Ha! Great minds DO think alike. I just blogged about the $100 Laptop and then came across your post via my Google News Reader. Your pal, SEA
http://greenskeptic.blogspot.com/2007/10/innovation-now-you-can-give-one-get-one.html
Hello! I read this tidbit about the $100 Laptop and I don’t get it. With a $100 why not buy pencils and books? Why all this effort to develop a cheaper laptop when we could have spent all that money and thinking power on something more productive?
I think there a number of problems with the laptop idea. Some arithmetic will illustrate my point (courtesy of Jeffrey Sachs, not my favourite person but he has a point here):
An anti-malaria bed net costs $5 and lasts for 5 years.
$100 buys 20 bed nets.
The money for one laptop can be used to protect a person for 100 years from Malaria (assuming the net provides perfect protection). One effect of this would be to reduce child mortality and as a consequence reduce fertility rates significantly. Surely, the reduction of fertility rates will have a far greater measurable effect on the wellbeing of a nation than access to the internet. The world’s population is exploding and we all need to deal with the prospect of a complete lack of resources for developing countries.
It’s clear that the people behind this project did not think this whole thing through. My main problem is with the view that technology will solve educational problems. Like I said before, what’s wrong with spending money on pencils and books and more importantly teachers? If every kid has a laptop but no teacher I don’t see how they will learn. By video conference? I don’t think that is a solution and this laptop is truly a half-baked idea.
After all the major problems of the developing country have been solved can we entertain the idea of giving every child a laptop. At this moment in time our efforts should be diverted to more effective means to achieve the millenium development goals or equivalent goal.
With the 2008 whatsbubbling slowdown, I went back and have read again some of the prior blog entries. With regards the $100 laptop - for me the biggest issue is whether this will truely improve education around the world. For me aspects such as education and literacy are often overlooked, but crucial for development to be sustainable. With a better educated community, the implementation and importance of health and sanitation schemes etc becomes a lot easier and ultimately something which can then be sustained by the future educated generations. Not saying education is more important, but that it should be complementary to other development initiatives. Question then is - will this laptop improve worlwide education?