Where are all of those donated XO laptops going?
Given all the interest around One Laptop Per Child's "Give One Get One" program, I've been wondering just where all those laptops that are being donated are actually going.
For those who have been in the dark, the organization is trying to boost its low-cost laptop program through a promotion in which people in the U.S. can pay $399 to donate one of the rugged Linux laptops and also get one for themselves. The program's terms and conditions say little, other than that it will go to a child in a country on the UN's list of least developed countries. But I was wondering whether the laptops would go to people in countries that were already customers of OLPC or prospective customers or countries that had otherwise eschewed the One Laptop Per Child initiative.
This school was the first test deployment site for OLPC's XO laptops.
(Credit: Khaled Hassounah)An OLPC spokeswoman said that donated laptops would be headed to countries such as Afghanistan, Rwanda, Cambodia, Haiti, and Mongolia--places that generally couldn't afford big laptop giveaways. In general, she said that the donated laptops would help "jump-start" a program in those places, though she said Mongolia and perhaps others on that list might also be eventual customers.
As long as I had her on the phone, I thought I would see if the organization had any response to reports that a Nigerian company is suing OLPC for patent infringement over its keyboard design.
"OLPC is aware of the claims made by Lagos Analysis Corp. (LANCOR) but has not been served with any legal documents related to this," she said. "OLPC has requested that LANCOR identify the patents or copyrights in question, but the company has yet to substantiate its claim against OLPC with any documentation. OLPC has the utmost respect for the rights of intellectual property owners and all the intellectual property used in the XO Laptop is either owned by OLPC or properly licensed."
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While I find the system intriguing, I think its simplified interface is based on an underestimation of the intelligence of children. Like MS Office's annoying habit of hiding infrequently used menu items, it takes the idea of hiding the complexity too far. My son at two could use Windows 2000 for simple tasks. At three, he has located files that I had hidden on my computer on our home network. He often does things on there that I haven't shown him how to do. It is *that* intuitive. Besides, you're not doing the poor children in developing nations any favors by teaching them to use a system so vastly different from what is used in the rest of the world.
I worry that a bunch of idealistic CS and HCI theorists like Nicholas Negroponte and Alan Kay are using the children of the third world as guinea pigs for their pet theories. They can do this because those in leadership in poor countries are often unaccountable to their citizenry (see Libya). In such countries, you can wow a few powerful people with your unproven and, for the moment, subsidized technologies and you can get them to spend gazillions of dollars in tax money and aid subsidizing your vision of what computers should be. It reminds me of the hubris of China's Great Leap Forward and the disastrous rapid development schemes attempted by post-colonial governments in Africa in the 60s and 70s.
Say what you will about Microsoft, at least corporations are, in the final analysis, accountable to their customers. If they build something nobody wants, they go out of business. If you're "giving something away" you don't need to listen to the recipients of your generosity. They should just be grateful and shut up.
Think I'm being overly harsh? Here is a quote from an interview with OLPC visionary, Nicholas Negroponte, in a Nigerian newspaper (http://tinyurl.com/2eq3k8):
"[http://Q.|http://Q.] We understand that Bill Gates and some others in this business have criticized this initiative as untenable. What is your response to this?
[http://A.|http://A.] I don?t respond to such criticism. Because criticizing this project is like criticizing the church, or the Red Cross."
I hate to defend Bill Gates, but his intelligent philanthropy has saved more lives per dollar than anything OLPC (or for that matter, probably the Red Cross) will ever do. Keep my son (probably more like all the sons in my village) from dying or being crippled for life from malaria, or give him a $200 laptop? Hmm... let me think about that one.
Okay, rant over. Criticism aside, it is a revolutionary device. I would love to see how it works out in a real life setting. I just think we need some sort of IRB if we're going to be experimenting on the world's poorest children (okay, I guess I wasn't quite done with the ranting).
Any part of XO can be extended/refined with a little bit of Python. A "class" act!