The exchange of arguments related to the pro’s and con’s of the OLPC crusade can be compiled to

” it is better than nothing ” whereas i would argue ” nothing better than nothing ”

It is in the line with the tradition of abusing a whole continent and the poor population of

the world, first we enslaved them, fair enough then is then and now is now, than we occupied

their land, stole whatever of any value, raped, abused, infections, religion, alcohol, and

disrupted the tribal based society in such way that their is no way back.Like Nobel Prize winner

Mr. Desmond Tutu said ” They came to our country and handed us the bible, asked to close our eyes

as to prey together, and when we opened our eyes they had taken our land, and we stood with there

with the bible in our hands”

Since 40 / 50 years a wide variety of assistance has been given with practically no result as

the NGO’s have been “digested” when it comes to projects sponsored, financed or donated more often

than not it is a waste of time and money.Civil unrest, wars, structural corruption and poorly

trained administrators, very poor education and on top of that the devastating impact of AIDS.

18 % HIV positiv, 1 million who even don’t know they are HIV positive, average age decined for

women to 53 and men 49 which is about 13 years less than 10 – 20- years ago.Last and not least

30 – 35 % unemployment and a new wave of youth to arrive.

Reason enough for digital assistance, no doubt, but not this way, just a few reasons :

- still a lack of classrooms, streaming water, toilets, books etc.

- children up and down to school with a laptop is too dangerous and will become a major source

of problems and conflicts with possible physical injuries, knives are very common here.

- At home on a good friday or saturday evening it is gone for a bottle of beer before you know it.

- A major part of the problem is the from the day kids are born and at 5 years are physically and

mentally already lightyears behind.5 years and ask to give red,blue,yellow the name of the color,

and when they go to school a large % is not able to pick it up and are sitting in total isolation

and leave school at 10 // 12 crime, prostitution, mother at 14 // 15 years.

To do a better job as parents they have to have access or be accessible via internet at home and

with the access the little ones can be stimulated to actively use and develop their brains and

curiosity and eagerness to know / learn more.

For the schools the laptop is a total waste “mesh” “videocamera” “wireless” for the sake of what ?

To benefit from technology adapted tuition material is required and the teacher must have direct

access to the screen of the 40 /45 pupils, which most probably the years after is less than half,

and each child could at its own speed and interest measured in time learn much more, others don’t

have to wait for her / him and the slower ones bot the constant pressure of hardly or nothing to

understand.

- Without a pre commitment from the government regarding the implementation of the equipment

the investment becomes a total waste.

Intel is and has spent and arm and leg in time and money to educate teachers which is a

serious investment, less flashy, it is the dirty job, yes indeed someone has to do it and

will be bottomline much more effective.

- in sofar one can attach any value to calculations made by the UN, the few who reach a respectable

age will cost on a day to day basis quite some money and let it be 200 / 300 USD more or less

it makes the 100 Dollar a joke, money from Google, help from a few others, an ex factory price,

not by far any close to the 100 Dollar when you add transport, importduties and VAT.

That brings me where it is actually all about, a combination of gifts,philantropy, a contract,

a popconcert, artists who have to sort of discuss with the G-8 the debts and are slaughtered

by the politicians, it is done with the best intentions but not functional.

Combining straight forward business with aid is not the way to do it as it undermines

the normal way of trade, business on one side and where and when needed assistance , food relief,

medicines, one day you pay and the other they are for free.The laptop in question should under

“normal circustances” cost today let say 250 – 300 usd and perhaps in a year 150 – 250 Dollar

One will never know, as without the crusade of Mr. Negroponti the laptop would not have been the

consideration to buy or not to buy in the first place and what is furthermore damaging is the

impression people get that something is done to address the digital divide issue and the same

sort of impression all of us have had the last 40 / 50 years.

The relation between donor and receiving countries must become much more a business model , not

for the sake of business but for the sake of accountability. When the local rulers are not hold

accountable the waste of good money and energy will be wasted and ultimately bring the poor not

a step further and what is really needed is P2P based help, the knowledge gap is enormous and

millions, often quite simple, questions remain unanswered as there is no infrastructure but slowly

more and more people will get access to the web and when for whatever reason someone has questions

and could obtain some information or advuse from the rest of the world