[kictanet] Lets all move to remote parts of Africa - The laptops are coming :)

[Agosta Liko]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/11/the-sods-must-be-crazy-olpc-to-drop-tablets-from-helicopters-to-isolated-villages.ars

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has devised a bizarre plan for
deploying its new XO-3 tablet. The organization plans to drop the
touchscreen computers from helicopters near remote villages in developing
countries. The devices will then be abandoned and left for the villagers to
find, distribute, support, and use on their own.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte is optimistic that the portable
devices—which will be stocked with electronic books—will empower children
to learn to read without any external support or instruction. The strange
scheme reflects the OLPC project’s roots in constructivist education
theory, which emphasizes self-directed learning.

The OLPC project was originally founded to produce low-cost
education-focused laptops for children. The organization planned to sell
the devices in bulk to governments in developing countries, which would
then distribute them in classrooms. The plan was to leverage economy of
scale in manufacturing to bring the costs down, making the laptop cheap
enough that governments would be able to supply one to every child.

Although the ambitious project sold several million laptops, it fell far
short of its lofty goals and has been on life support for the past few
years. In addition to fundamental
logistical<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/01/olpc-angering-donors-give-1-get-1-some-day-probably.ars>and
technical failures, OLPC also suffered from internal
friction<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/04/negroponte-developers-at-odds-over-future-of-olpc-platform.ars>,
ideological conflicts<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/04/exodus-of-key-figures-from-olpc-a-troubling-sign-for-project.ars>,
and poor management<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/03/olpc-project-looks-for-new-leadership.ars>.
OLPC was forced to downsize half its
staff<http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/g1g1-failure-and-reduced-sponsorship-behind-the-olpc-layoffs.ars>and
discontinue
its software platform<http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/01/olpc-downsizes-half-of-its-staff-cuts-sugar-development.ars>in
2009 (a separate organization called Sugar Labs was founded to pick up
where OLPC left off on the software) after its second give-one-get-one
fundraiser fell through the floor.

After the staff cuts, OLPC dropped its plan to produce a dual-touchscreen
laptop and instead decided to focus on tablets. The organization showed off
glossy concept art of an impossibly thin XO-3 tablet at the end of 2009.
Last year, it announced a
partnership<http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/olpc-partners-with-marvell-gets-into-the-tablet-game.ars>with
hardware component maker Marvell. OLPC pragmatically chose to adopt
Marvell’s off-the-shelf reference design instead of trying to pursue the
unrealistic form factor that was shown in the original XO-3 mockups.

The tablets that Negroponte intends to fling from helicopters are based on
that Marvell design, but with a few enhancements, such as solar powered
batteries that will allow them to be used in regions without access to
electricity. It’s not clear yet if the organization was able to
successfully meet its target $75 production price.

Negroponte described the helicopter drop plan at the Open Mobile Summit
event in San Francisco. According to a PC Magazine
report<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395763,00.asp#fbid=yj2DHk4jyPG>,
he compared the project to the classic 1980 film, *The Gods Must Be Crazy*,
which depicted how an isolated tribe in the Kalahari Desert might react to
discovering a Coca-Cola bottle that fell from an airplane.

“We’ll take tablets and drop them out of helicopters into villages that
have no electricity and school, then go aback a year later and see if the
kids can read,” Negroponte told The
Register<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/02/negroponte_tablet_airdrops/>.
He reportedly cited Professor Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the
Wall<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiWEL>experiment as the basis for
his belief that dropping the tablets will
encourage self-directed literacy.

Among the major challenges that the OLPC project was never able to fully
overcome during its laptop days were supporting the hardware in the field
and providing teachers with the proper training and educational material.
In light of the cost and difficulty of tackling those issues, it’s not hard
to see why the eccentric stealth drop approach looks appealing to
Negroponte.

The obvious downside, however, is the sheer improbability that a majority
of the dropped devices will ever serve their intended function. It seems
unlikely that Negroponte will find governments that are willing to fund
such an odd boondoggle, though Marvell has provided some financial
backing<http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/10/olpc-gets-56-million-from-marvell-to-build-android-tablet.ars>.
Perhaps somebody needs to air drop Negroponte a healthy dose of common
sense to go with his change-the-world ambitions.
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