

The laptop wars - Will charity or profit end the digital divide? - davidw
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=10489616&CFID=3819273&CFTOKEN=c04adb97ba1e98a4-65D3B20F-B27C-BB00-012B4CE366E50403

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ivankirigin
I never understood complaints about the digital divide. I'm all for using
cellphone minutes as a micro currency, and rigging a windmill to generate
power in the middle of nowhere.

I'm just so much more concerned with the corruption-is-everywhere--i-cant-own-
my-own-land--western-trade-barriers-killed-my-crop-yield--my-government-
steals-aid divide.

Who cares about laptops when you have problems like that?

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sethjohn
Laptops provide people the means to educate themselves and communicate with
each other in new ways.

Education and communication are among the best tools available to address
problems such as fighting government corruption and clarifying land-ownership
rights.

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ivankirigin
I don't doubt that better educated and empowered locals will be able to solve
problems better.

It is just remarkably indirect

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aswanson
Seriously. If I don't have drinking water, food, and protection from the
elements, a laptop is the last thing on my mind.

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sethjohn
Come on, the laptops are not being given people for whom access to food,
water, and protection from the elements is a problem. The point is to provide
the educated working poor in 2nd/3rd world countries access to tools so that
they can improve their lives.

And for these people, access to education and communication is very, very
important. To take one example: farmers in rural India have a very hard time
getting a fair price for their crops because they can't access price
information before harvest, they basically have to just hop on a bus to the
nearest big village and take whatever price is offered by the middleman that
day. Poor communication leads to an inefficient economy.

If you don't think that laptops are the most efficient way to help these
people out, what are you proposing instead?

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eru
Profit.

Edit: Why do I read this article on screen? I mean - I have it on paper.. Damn
procrastination.

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bp001
What I have a hard time understanding is why the XO laptops are not sold in
the US and other industrialized nations as well as the developing world.

The only reason I have heard is that they don't want to get too "commercial"
with these...whatever. Surely economies of scale would kick in and they would
be able to drop prices faster and therefore be more successful with the aims
of this project?

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limeade
How is the OLPC project "charity" when the governments buy the laptops from
OLPC just as they would from Intel? The Economist is ridiculous, drawing false
distinctions.

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davidw
The project is being run as a non-profit. The money is to attempt to recoup
costs and make the project self-sustaining.

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eru
Perhaps they should just buy old laptops from eBay add crank generators and
software - then pass them on to the third world. That would mean much lower
up-front capital requirements. I mean - I could organize such a project in my
bedroom.

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sadiq
Take a look at the specs of the OLPC. It copes with pretty extreme conditions.
Heat, moisture, accidental damage, lack of clean power. The screen is readable
in African sunlight. I'd place a pretty decent wager you'd be hard pushed to
find a $100 laptop on Ebay that'd exceed the life expectancy and usefulness of
an XO.

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davidw
Not to mention the _nightmare_ of trying to create any sort of consistent
environment on 1000's of disparate machines and the person-hours that that
would entail. Furthermore, I recall reading something about trying to give the
XO sort of a "kiddy look/feel" in order to discourage adults from absconding
with them.

