austraLasia 1331
What's green, cranked, cheap, and educational?
...find out because some Salesian students in Asia, Africa and the Arab world will soon benefit from it.
TUNIS: 16th November 2005 -- The live webcast from Tunis and the WSIS Summit (cf. today's ANS) finished one minute ago, and it has to have been the most entertaining non-technical, educational hour one could have spent glued to a tiny screen! Kofi Annan and Nicholas Negroponte, developer of the $100 'green machine' OLPC project (One Laptop Per Child), launched the first working prototype of what they called 'the re-invention of the laptop'. But leave aside any of the technical aspects (and they were few, but fascinating), the most captivating aspect of the press conference was the educational passion of the man who has driven this project, set up a non-profit association to develop it, and is in consultation with 6 major world nations to put it into the hands of the first 6 million children.
"This is an educational solution, not a laptop one", Negroponte said, neatly deflecting a number of questions of the 'geeky' type. At the same time, he called on a man standing at the back of the room, Alan Kay, who actually invented the laptop back in 1958. Kay came forward and said "Yes, and I did it initially for kids". Negroponte revealed in his response to questions from journalists all around the world, that he had worked in Cambodia building schools with money he was earning from the internet boom, then became a firm friend of the man who is now Prime Minister of Thailand but who was then in telecommunications. No surprise then that Thailand is firmly committed to being one of the first six countries to take up OLPC, which means they will purchase a minimum of one million units, and will ensure these get to children for no more than the figure quoted, and that the children own their machine. Negroponte said that was essential. "Does anyone ever wash a rented car?" he asked? "No, the children must own their machine". And it will look like a kids machine - who else would want to use a green box with a crank handle?
He spoke passionately about his experience in another situation of giving laptops to children in rural villages where the machine was the brightest light source in the house -which had no electricity. It goes without saying that the 'green machine' will work without electricity, or with it. Its crank can produce enough to run it. It will connect to the internet and 'mesh' with many other similar machines connectively. In fact there is little that it won't do that children need to do with it. Since it is not yet in production, there has been no real field testing, other than giving it to kids to jump on, drop, twist, chew or whatever: it is safe, then, and as indestructible as one could hope for. It works on Open Source software, which means the community worldwide is effectively helping to develop it.
Negroponte said many things about education in the course of the hour. He said that all the world's problems required education as part of their solution. He also said, in response to a question as to why he wouldn't deal with business but with governments to distribute the machine, that he believed firmly that education was a public good and therefore a responsibility of government. To deal with business rather than government, he said, was to sanction the latter also turning their back on their educational responsibilities. That does not mean he is not using advice and expertise from the private sector. And he hopes commercial interests will help produce it - maybe even more cheaply! Google are a sponsor, so is Rupert Murdoch.
And who might the other five countries be? He let some names slip: Nigeria, Egypt, Brazil, and it's a toss up between China and India. There will be one other African country. February should see the first models produced and once they have a few million they will be immediately shipped.
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AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml. If you subscribe, email this information and your name will come off the regular email list. RSS eliminates problems such as multiple mailings, viruses, email bloat. Think about it!
What's green, cranked, cheap, and educational?
...find out because some Salesian students in Asia, Africa and the Arab world will soon benefit from it.
TUNIS: 16th November 2005 -- The live webcast from Tunis and the WSIS Summit (cf. today's ANS) finished one minute ago, and it has to have been the most entertaining non-technical, educational hour one could have spent glued to a tiny screen! Kofi Annan and Nicholas Negroponte, developer of the $100 'green machine' OLPC project (One Laptop Per Child), launched the first working prototype of what they called 'the re-invention of the laptop'. But leave aside any of the technical aspects (and they were few, but fascinating), the most captivating aspect of the press conference was the educational passion of the man who has driven this project, set up a non-profit association to develop it, and is in consultation with 6 major world nations to put it into the hands of the first 6 million children.
"This is an educational solution, not a laptop one", Negroponte said, neatly deflecting a number of questions of the 'geeky' type. At the same time, he called on a man standing at the back of the room, Alan Kay, who actually invented the laptop back in 1958. Kay came forward and said "Yes, and I did it initially for kids". Negroponte revealed in his response to questions from journalists all around the world, that he had worked in Cambodia building schools with money he was earning from the internet boom, then became a firm friend of the man who is now Prime Minister of Thailand but who was then in telecommunications. No surprise then that Thailand is firmly committed to being one of the first six countries to take up OLPC, which means they will purchase a minimum of one million units, and will ensure these get to children for no more than the figure quoted, and that the children own their machine. Negroponte said that was essential. "Does anyone ever wash a rented car?" he asked? "No, the children must own their machine". And it will look like a kids machine - who else would want to use a green box with a crank handle?
He spoke passionately about his experience in another situation of giving laptops to children in rural villages where the machine was the brightest light source in the house -which had no electricity. It goes without saying that the 'green machine' will work without electricity, or with it. Its crank can produce enough to run it. It will connect to the internet and 'mesh' with many other similar machines connectively. In fact there is little that it won't do that children need to do with it. Since it is not yet in production, there has been no real field testing, other than giving it to kids to jump on, drop, twist, chew or whatever: it is safe, then, and as indestructible as one could hope for. It works on Open Source software, which means the community worldwide is effectively helping to develop it.
Negroponte said many things about education in the course of the hour. He said that all the world's problems required education as part of their solution. He also said, in response to a question as to why he wouldn't deal with business but with governments to distribute the machine, that he believed firmly that education was a public good and therefore a responsibility of government. To deal with business rather than government, he said, was to sanction the latter also turning their back on their educational responsibilities. That does not mean he is not using advice and expertise from the private sector. And he hopes commercial interests will help produce it - maybe even more cheaply! Google are a sponsor, so is Rupert Murdoch.
And who might the other five countries be? He let some names slip: Nigeria, Egypt, Brazil, and it's a toss up between China and India. There will be one other African country. February should see the first models produced and once they have a few million they will be immediately shipped.
_________________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml. If you subscribe, email this information and your name will come off the regular email list. RSS eliminates problems such as multiple mailings, viruses, email bloat. Think about it!
