OLPC's "green machine"
I tried to keep this short, as I’m sure everyone’s crazy busy with finals. Have fun debating Dvorak in the comments!
Nicholas Negroponte interview with Riz Khan
- Give One, Get One—Every time someone bought a Green Machine, one would be donated to a child in another country.
- Wanted to connect children around the world—felt that the industry would never create a low-cost laptop itself
- Figures that children will be able to immediately pick up the skills necessary to work the computers
- Doesn’t want people to think of it as giving children laptops, but an education. “An inoculation against ignorance”
- Thinks that kids who go online are more engaged and more interesting off-line—will allow more interaction
- Laptops are child-friendly: they convert into a games machine, works in the sunlight, low-power (with a hand crank), have antenna technology that creates a network
- The hope is that the teacher/student relationship will improve when students can teach the teachers
- Open source community helped them to localize the tech, including keyboards for each country
- Give one get one—wants people to fund other people. Faster than waiting for countries to announce funding
Map of internet use by country
One Laptop, One Child Doesn’t Change the World
John Dvorak
Note: I might be the only one, but when I click the link it takes me to an article with the correct title, but a completely unrelated story. I did some googling and found a copy of it here (or at least what I’m hoping is a copy).
- The OLPC program lets people feel like they’re doing something helpful, but really doesn’t do much.
- Since so many people are living in poverty, he views it as a “let them eat cake” solution
- Characterizes the internet as “spam-ridden Information Super Ad-way laced with Nigerian scams, hoaxes, porn, blogs, wikis, spam, urban folklore, misinformation, sites selling junk from China, bomb-making instructions, jihad initiatives, communist propaganda, Nazi propaganda, exhortations, movie clips of cats playing the piano, advertising, advertising, and more advertising”, conveniently ignoring… basically everything else.
- Notes that laptops aren’t much good without a classroom (which is debatable) and literacy (which is actually a pretty good point)
- Takes to task the notion that once kids in Africa have laptops, the digital divide will be fixed
One of the “movie clips of cats playing piano” that Dvorak was so dismissive of… Play him off, Keyboard Cat!
Give me rice, but give me a laptop too
Bill Thompson
- Things have not gone as well as initially hoped for with the laptops: they cost more to make than expected, not very many governments are buying into the program, and Microsoft and Intel keep trying to ruin things
- Feels that Dvorak’s critique of OLPC is overly simplistic and potentially damaging, as he has so much influence
- Access to the internet will make it easier for developing nations to get other necessary goods and services
- Agrees that there are and will be problems with the program, but that’s no reason not to try
Internet Traffic Map
Internet Galaxy Meets Postnational Constellation: Prospects for Political Solidarity After the Internet
Catherine Frost
- Likens the role of the internet to the role of print in the spread of nationalism in Anderson’s Imagined Communities
- In order to have a postnationalist society, we must have a common political culture. Some think that the internet can help spread this sense of global solidarity. Frost addresses why this is problematic in four ways:
- Conceptions of Community: there are limits to the ability to create communities on the internet. First of all, the relative ease of anonymity means that it is hard to build solidarity with others, since identities are ever-changing. Anonymity also encourages deviant behavior. The internet is thus unlikely to establish the mutual trust necessary to build a common political culture.
- Systems of Meaning: In the building of nationalisms, a shared system of meaning (usually a religion) is necessary. This doesn’t really happen on the internet, largely because there are no boundaries. While there is the potential for a collective to exist, the increasing commercialization on the internet makes this unlikely.
- Political Engagement: While the internet has let some people engage in more political discussion, there’s still that pesky digital divide. It therefore does not qualify as a new public sphere. Also, useful political discussion requires sacrifice and mature discussion. Obviously, anonymous online identities aren’t all that effective in this realm.
- Social Inclusivity: While cohesive networks might not evolve on the internet, it could widen social divides between those who have access and those who don’t, making a tighter-knit political community of the disadvantaged. Um, yay?
- Conclusions: An internet-led postnational community is unlikely. If social change does occur, it’s likely to happen through those who don’t have as much access, not the new media elites.
... I don't even know.
Recommended Reading
OLPC XO-2 cancelled
There were plans to make a dual-screen e-book/netbook, but now they’re making a tablet instead. OLPC was going to be basically the only company making the e-book/netbook thing, but are now going for something more traditional. Honestly, I don’t really even understand the concept. But it’s dead now, anyway.
Also, while they’ve fulfilled all their orders and are doing all right, sales have not been amazing. But not horrible either.
Possibly Relevant Posts:
- Access is only the beginning (7) | Gabriel Mugar
- Bookers Facebook fans weigh in (8) | Gabriel Mugar
- Accessing the Mashup (2) | Gabriel Mugar
11 Comments
I can’t believe how shortsighted Dvorak’s article is. I mean, it’s important to point out the drawbacks of the program, but come on. I think the BBC article made some great points about Dvorak’s argument – that the laptop isn’t just a gadget, but a tool for education and empowerment. The “We want bread, but we want roses, too!” argument is really important – Dvorak seems to be thinking that the One Laptop Per Child is an either/or aid situation, but it doesn’t have to be.
I also enjoyed Frost’s article. Again, Dvorak seems to be saying that one reason not to provide laptops to impoverished children is to “protect” them from excessive advertising and all of the bad things about the internet. As Frost explains, the Internet can create solidarity by highlighting what a group is missing out on, and while this may not be what Negroponte has in mind with the program, it may be the reality that arises from the program – spurring technological development and solidarity in the developing world.
I’m a former colleague of Camille’s and I’ve worked on public relations efforts related to OLPC in the kinda-recent past. I’ve got a few comments that might be relevant.
1) Don’t underestimate the power of cute green Fisher-Price technology to take a complex issue (such as providing technology access to students in developing geographies) and make it accessible to the media. OLPC got a lot of mileage out of pictures of photogenic third world kids holding up the OLPC. So did many government officials (who then didn’t do anything to follow up on their handshake deals with NN).
2) Infrastructure matters. Distribution into remote locales, spare parts, training, freshened learning content in local languages, satellite broadband – the challenge of providing sustainable tech access starts with getting the child the laptop. It doesn’t end with it.
3) Dvorak is a professional contrarian. He’s not the high-water mark for OLPC skeptics. That position is held by Fake Steve Jobs (Newsweek writer Dan Lyons). A classic rant here: http://tinyurl.com/yaucfex
4) Nicholas N. deserves all credit for driving the tech industry to pay attention to a real problem and in shaping the narrative for a sustained period of time.
5) A great resource for reviewing the lifecycle of the OLPC story is Wayan Vota’s OLPCNews blog at http://www.olpcnews.com/archives.html . Wayan is a fan of the OLPC but he is also intellectually honest, so he’s not above pointing out the unsupportable hype.
6) Having a ‘bad guy’ has been an important part of sustaining the OLPC narrative (and energizing supporters). Look for how it was used against Intel in the 60 Minutes piece on OLPC in May 2007.
As mentioned in the comment above mine, it seems that Dvorak’s schtick (and it really does seem gimmicky) is his pessimistic view of technology. He even has a podcast called CrankyGeeks. And if you look up his wiki, there’s a quote from him from an article he wrote for the San Francisco Examiner in 1984: “The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.” So there’s that.
Dvorak’s argument that OLPC is easy to agree with if you’re thinking about the program on a shallow surface. Yes, basic needs are more important than technology. Shallowly, his argument makes sense. But dig deeper, and OLPC’s mission is an important one. Dvorak notes that the laptops aren’t of use without literacy, but I imagine that these laptops could be efficient tools to teach literacy.
Since we read Anderson and Habermas in Core this semester, Frost’s article was really interesting to me. It was kind of an updated version of both. It also makes me think back to all of the discussions we’ve had on echo chambers. Her theory that “under conditions of Internet anonymity, deviant behavior is not simply common, it actually becomes the norm” struck me. She said this inhibits social connections, but I wonder how this differs from offline communities? I think anonymity could also have a positive effect on social relations, as people are often more willing to connect with others and express themselves more honestly anonymously.
Thanks for the comments, Rob. Some thoughts:
1) OLPC is a non-profit, so whatever “mileage” was accrued by having a cute product is still being employed for a social cause. That’s key. As for governments lifting off the hype but not following through with purchases– a government even validating the need to be digitally aware is a powerful social message. And we can’t discount how much the financial outlook of every country in the world has changed in the past two years. Much richer nations also rethought and halted major investiture.
6) I think the “narrative” is coming from Mircosoft. Once again, OLPC is a non-profit. Negroponte invited others to knock off OLPC’s laptop – they just want them out there, affordably. Microsoft is talking out of two sides of its mouth, acknowledging a digital divide while not being genuinely committed to addressing it in the way OLPC is. MS knew their low-cost laptop would undercut OLPC’s sales, but profits potential trumped social responsibility or activism, because Microsoft is very decidedly not a non-profit.
Re: Dvorak and the assertion that digital familiarity helps no one in impoverished countries. Um, has he heard of Bangalore?
Wow so did Camille outsource her comment this week?
I am not surprised at the backlash surrounding teh OLPC program. The technology and computer industry are natrious for skimming and pricing things at a high point to try to get those technocrats to buy the hottest newest technology before everyone else. It just makes buisness sense that they would try to quash the program.
Media literacy is a huge issue that was debated long before anyone was sending laptops transnationally. Technology and its integration into the American classroom is still a huge issue. Would Dvorak argue against giving American impoverished children in rural areas laptops, or would that be patronizing too? I think it is natural that media literacy and integration into the educational structure would be even more difficult in less developed countries. But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. Especially since laptops can deliver information, a powerful tool (teach a man to fish and all that).
I think that Dvorak is a bit contradictory when he says that the OLPC program was providing impoverished kids with advertising machines and then stating that they can’t understand the majority of the internet because it isn’t in their native language.
Thanks to my buddy Rob for chiming in on the blog! A few additional thoughts to toss into our mix here:
+Some might have noticed by now that I geek out on what social media technologies are doing to the way we view credibility in the U.S. (for starters). We talked about it early in the semester in the context of news (e.g. the weight of the NYT is challenged by Google/news aggregators). I noticed it again last week in the context of higher education (e.g. many people think the traditional credential system is less relevant in a networked world). And here, in the form of a child’s laptop, we have value shifts afoot. Is the digital divide smaller or wider because of OLPC and the tools it enables? The optimist in me says smaller. Is this important to poor people? The optimist in me says yes, although I can’t begin to answer why because I’m not poor.
+Anu (and perhaps others): I did not work on the program (and Rob is always respectful of client confidentiality so he will not answer #6), but as much as I love to tout the power of PR, I would say the narrative is not, in fact, coming from Microsoft. That ‘bad guy’ narrative Rob speaks of is present in almost every story (news or otherwise). Microsoft, nor any company of any stripe, need not insert it or manipulate it because the authors (in this case, the press) are practically wired (ha) to tell stories in this manner.
+I’m curious if the class on the whole thinks non-profits are inherently better at social responsibility? Without Microsoft’s capitalist ways, there would be no Gates Foundation–an organization that most of us would agree does really important social work. I’m not advocating the opposite–that a for profit company is more effective–but I am cheering for a frothy mixture of for and not for profit.
From my experience working at both non-profit and for-profit ventures, in relation to theater (a wonderful kind of activism), I could not choose between the two models based on inputs or outputs. As an employee, both models had terrible pain points and groovy joys. As for the theater we produced, both forms (in-house vs. bus & truck outsourced), had similar pros and cons. To relate this back to the readings, OLPC and ideas like it will be more effective, regardless of business model/partners, if education remains the North star. And yes, education can be profitable, just ask NYU
.
@Gordita I completely agree with your stand on the non-profit vs. profit ventures. Having worked both ends of the spectrum myself, I’ve seen how even when the non-profits are supposed to (especially in aid situations such as this) stay on somewhat neutral grounds, there is always that underlying reason/or goal that they’ve already established as a part of their mission statement. And while for-profit businesses tend to have a somewhat clear mission statement already presented, they sometimes surprise you with the things that they might contribute.
I actually came into contact with the OLPC back before they actually launched and almost contemplated getting one myself, but never did. Never the less, having also experienced being in these areas where kids need learning supplies, no matter what they are, it’s hard to say that they are in the wrong with what they’re doing. We also have to keep in the mind the adaptability of a child’s brain. Just because the internet isn’t in their language doesn’t mean they aren’t going to learn the language or at least find a way to make this machine beneficial to their own growth.
As a somewhat random example and maybe he has slightly different circumstances than some of the kids receiving the OLPCs but this guy saw a picture of a windmill in a book and found out it could produce electricity and so he just went and made one for himself.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-7-2009/william-kamkwamba
I completely agree with Thompson that even though there are some negatives holding the program back, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least make an attempt.
Gotta say…Dvorak is a bit of a haaaaaater. His view is extremely shortsighted, and even if OLPC isn’t doing as much as they hoped to, hopefully in time it will all come together. You can’t exactly be doinga terrible things supplying children with the material to leran and stimulate their minds. Though i do have to say that I agree with Frost when she says that anonymity will prevent the type of community “imagined” (haha) by Anderson.And i do agree witht he comments on non-profits, be claiming to be non-profits, i feel that they somehow avoid too much responsibility. And let’s face it, for profit business have more cash to throw around, even if its not as large a percentage of their earnings as we would like. Money does make the world go round…
I really like the whole mission/ideology behold One Laptop Per Child, and I’m seriously considering buying one/donating one for my 5 y/o sister. It’s not food, it’s not shelter, but its a catalyst for education, literacy, and media/tech literacy. The lap top cannot provide everything, however it can make such impoverished areas more accessible. What I don’t like about Dvorak’s response is this: He’s looking at the program through an extremely narrow lens, sort of siting the fact that the computer is not consistent with these (impoverished) childrens’ hierarchy of needs. However he’s viewing this as a lap top rather than a catalyst for education. So in a sense, he’s condemning education unless/until all of those other needs are taken care of. Failing to take into account that education is a more fundamental need than he would have us believe.
I giggled out loud @ allison’s citation from his 1984 article: “The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.”
Anyhow, I don’t know what Dvorak expected to gain (aside from publicity) by attacking a non-profit. And I think his insinuation that anybody is hoping to benefit from advertising to these children is ridiculous. Sponsoring companies might gain brand sympathy form “us”, but who’s going to argue being that it’s a noble cause?
The ‘net seems to be evolving in Frost’s image of a post-nationalist society. I see anonymity being continuously phased out or at least reduced. Perhaps we’ll one day have universal identifiers such as Lessig’s ID cards – or we’ll simply have our own personal ipv6 address. Regardless, through cyberspace, we’re able to transcend physical barriers, which makes the post-national collective/imagined community possible. Can you imagine an environment where collectives/communities are dependent on virtual affiliation rather than physical space? I feel a science fiction novel coming on.
The web extends the lucidity of imagined communities and the ideology we’re capable of sharing – much like newspapers did many years ago. I think that during our lifetimes however, we’ll always be subordinate to physical borders. It will interesting to see the conflicts that arise with post-nationalism in a nationalist world – I wonder how many of us will one day be called “terrorists”…?
to be honest, I’ve always been on the side of skepticism when it came to the OLPC. AND unfortunately, I learned not to question it when I lived in the Bay Area. I was never questioning it in a vicious way, just wanted to have a conversation about it, because, you gotta agree, the arguments that other people make are also valid. I’m not saying OLPC is a waste or should be around, and I’m definitely not siding with the extreme views that Dvorak presents, I am saying, however, that there are questions and those questions are valid, and yes, I don’t think OLPC is the answer to a lot of things. but it still is cool, in a way, and it still has exposed people to technology and computers and all these things – maybe it’ll make them want more? maybe it’ll make them reach higher? and yes, those kids desperately need clean water, and food, and clothes, and healthcare, and… the list is unending. I think it’s natural for people to question the introduction of ‘technology’ that doesn’t directly affect the most pressing needs of people. and I’m sorry, but the OLPC program doesn’t really directly affect these most pressing needs. all the points brought up by the haters are totally valid – but they don’t need to be brought up in such a hateful way. I think it’s good that OLPC exists, and I think that it’s bad also. it does look like people are trying to address both issues…
I think the points brought up on the sociological images blog (thanks for the link, Sara!) are a really good read and a good example of a decent discussion on the topic, aside from the asinine depiction of course!
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, anyone?
Influential as he is, I’ve never really agreed with Dvorak’s views. As Melissa said, hes short-sited. Brilliant yes, but short-sited. I for one am all for the get one give one program. And a crank powered laptop could really come in handy. The potential market is tremendous. I’m on the road a lot and I don’t always have time to charge my laptop, so a simple hand crank could really help with communication between me and my business partners. The idea that OLPC doesn’t directly affect the needs of the underprivileged, is incorrect. With access to blogs and the wider world, these kids can now spread their message of desperation. If I need something, I use Google, sure I might not find the answer, but I can E-mail fox-news, or NBC. With internet access, you now have an entire new world of possibilities.