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

Wed Nov 9 11:01:54 EAT 2011

Hey all,

Don't we want these tablets?  Whether they are meant to rain from the skies,
or wash up on the shores of

Mombasa, I believe we can persuade Mr. Negroponte  to start with us. Who can
make contact, Agosta..?

Harry

From: kictanet-bounces+harry=comtelsys.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=comtelsys.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf Of Agosta Liko
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 5:52 PM
To: harry at comtelsys.co.ke
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: [kictanet] Lets all move to remote parts of Africa - The laptops
are coming :)

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/11/the-sods-must-be-crazy-olpc-to-d
rop-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-ge
t-1-some-day-probably.ars>  and technical failures, OLPC also suffered from
internal
<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/04/negroponte-developers-at-odds-
over-future-of-olpc-platform.ars>  friction, ideological
<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/04/exodus-of-key-figures-from-olp
c-a-troubling-sign-for-project.ars>  conflicts, and poor
<http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/03/olpc-project-looks-for-new-lea
dership.ars>  management. OLPC was forced to downsize
<http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/g1g1-failure-and-reduced-sp
onsorship-behind-the-olpc-layoffs.ars>  half its staff and discontinue
<http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/01/olpc-downsizes-half-of-its-sta
ff-cuts-sugar-development.ars>  its software platform 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
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395763,00.asp#fbid=yj2DHk4jyPG>  PC
Magazine report, 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
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/02/negroponte_tablet_airdrops/>  The
Register. 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
<http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/10/olpc-gets-56-million-from-m
arvell-to-build-android-tablet.ars>  backing. 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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