The next year must surely be make or break for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. This has been chundering along for a couple of years now, under the guidance of sometime IT guru Nicholas Negraponte and his team at MIT. In a nutshell it's all about delivering a $100 laptop to kids in developing countries that have little or no access to technology. Most challenging is the fact that it must be capable of powering itself - although this has now been scaled back to 'optional'.
It's a laudable project and Wikipedia has a good overview if you want an update. It details the critical comments from Bill Gates and Intel's Craig Barret, to name but a few.
I too have a number of concerns for its future.
1. Security. As the spec of the machine gets better and better I fear that although it will only cost $100 (currently $150) to produce it will be valued much higher to communities that receive it. It will be the equivalent of dropping a $5,000 computer into the hands of a kid living on a 'sink' estate in the UK. The result? The kid will need some serious security to ensure it isn't nicked or that he isn't mugged for it. Security that is just not there.
In reality these laptops will have to be guarded centrally at schools and the like, in turn making them a huge target for thieves who want to steal a score of them in one go. While central storage offers more security it also somewhat defeats the object of putting so much work into making the device portable. The future is surely dirt cheap devices will all the powerful stuff held online - at least we are heading in that direction.
So OLPC is really about getting cheaper PCs to poor communities. Something that happens already through IT recycling firms that send kit on to the third world (and don't take anything less than a PC made in the last four years I have heard). These older PCs have the benefit that they are far less easy and attractive to steal than a laptop. A laptop I suggest is the western obsession. For practical security reasons a large PC is still the object of desire for more poor communities that want to share the technology among a number of people.
2. Return to sender? There is a dilemma for the OLPC project. The better the device the more it will be in demand in the west. I get the impression that they have squared this one off with tech industry sponsors by assuring them that it won't be available in the developed world. But corrupt officials and criminal gangs will clearly see a market. Who in the West wouldn't want to give their kids a laptop at that price? Most families would willingly buy one per child, if you excuse the pun.
The project has also been criticised by those that think kids need books before computers and those that still don't believe it can be done for $100. The longer the project goes on, the more likely both criticisms will pale into insignificance. But not yet. The first few thousand prototypes have been built in China and are now being sent to various locations worldwide for 'testing'.
This 'testing' phase concerns me and I suspect that things are still somewhat half-baked (this has been the hallmark of the project so far). If Negraponte really believes the device is ready, why not give it to the press? That is perhaps the most rigorous testing anything can have. I also worry that connectivity is based on Wi-Fi, something I suspect few kids in the developed world, let alone third world, have access to.
Perhaps the best result the project can hope for is stimulating the tech industry to produce a decent cheap computer for the masses on a commercial basis. This recent article in the International Herald Tribune suggests there are signs of hope. But I can't help thinking that $100, $200 or even $300 is a price point that no manufacturer wants to contemplate. Its funny how trying to do something useful in the third world always seems to have a knock-on effect back home which puts something of a spanner in the works.
I have no clue how independent it is, but for a near-daily update on what is going on with the project you can't do much better than One Laptop Per Child News (www.olpcnews.com). Reading through the site I notice a piece that suggests there is already a demand for the device on eBay and an intriguing suggestion that MIT should sell them for $100 plus an excess that would then be ploughed back into the project. Interesting idea, but not one that I think the sponsors will be too happy with. It would also lead to Westerners touting the product in public - not something Negraponte particularly wants to see. He says the distinctive look should help ensure they are only used by those that they are intended for - some hope.
The site looks useful but there is no archive and the search option doesn't work. I have also asked the site's founder Wayan for an interview to gain more insights but no joy yet. Watch this space.
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