400 Bucks Can Change The World
You’ve heard of One Laptop Per Child, right? Have you seen the XO, the box in question?
So here’s the deal: Nicholas Negroponte cooks up a laptop for people in developing nations. Some people gripe about it and say that he should send food and basics first. His return argument? So you should stop educating people until they’re all fed? They’re not parallel?
I’m with Nick. (Don’t know the man, but I like his plan.)
So, here’s why this is the sexy:
- The boxes are inexpensive. Under $200 a box.
- They feature FIVE full programming environments (for geeks, read here).
- They come built with a mesh network right out of the box.
- They have collaboration built into almost every app. So two kids sit down somewhere, open their XOs, and they can write on the same doc.
- They have webcams, so places with literacy issues can suddenly open the conversation to parents, who’ve been excluded from a child’s school experience, until now.
- There are other sexy things, but I’m doing this off the top of my head, instead of re-copying the dogma.
I believe this organization and this opportunity will make vast changes on the shape of things in the world. Know why? I spoke with a former coworker, Ramesh, about what it was like being one of 50 guys in his village to borrow the SINGLE PAIR of shoes that all guys could borrow, to travel two hours by foot, bus, and train to Hyderabad to look for a job. His village? They had only rice worker jobs. Now? As broadband slowly slips across more and more of India, there are people looking to do more and bring more value to their families. Being already computer proficient (all the way down to developing in five languages) will blow the doors off this.
How You Can Help
The program is called Give One Get One, and you do this: give them $399 US, which buys two computers: one goes to a child in a developing nation; the other goes to the child (or you) in your life. You can deduct $200 off your taxes for this, plus T-Mobile is giving away free wifi in their hot spots for a year. FREE HOTSPOTS FOR A YEAR.
I’ll tell you personally, this is worth the price alone. I pay more than $200 a year on hotspot access. Don’t you?
So what do you think? $399 saves the world. Give One, Get One and make a difference this holiday season. Beats the hell out of buying someone an iPod, don’t you think?
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
I’ve been covering the G1G1 program since it was first announced. i think it’s a great opportunity for humanity to power this project instead of Governments.
However this is just a test program, we need to show OLPC that the G1G1 program is a great idea!
I ordered 1 (a pair) this morning, despite being in not great financial shape, I think it’s that important. I encourage you all to do the same.
Good promo Chris. Everyone in the world should have a laptop. How else are they going to read your blog?
[…] - PMP Today wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt You’ve heard of One Laptop Per Child, right? Have you seen the XO, the box in question? So here’s the deal: Nicholas Negroponte cooks up a laptop for people in developing nations. Some people gripe about it and say that he should send food and basics first. His return argument? So you should stop educating people until they’re all fed? They’re not parallel? I’m with Nick. (Don’t know the man, but I like his plan.) So, here’s why this is the sexy: The boxes are inexpensive. Under $200 a […]
Dropped the money for one (two!) this morning.
I am really excited that Python, Smalltalk, and Logo are all included, as these will make a fantastic foundation for anyone aspiring to get into programming.
Thank you so much for this excellent post Chris. Dan (comment#4) made a good point…How are children in the developing world going to read chrisbrogan.com without a laptop? Check out the PSA on YouTube by Masi Oka, star from hit show Heroes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbtebeftyA
Thanks
I agree that this is a great idea, but I’m wondering if you’ve actually tried out these computers. I’ve heard they’re crap — sound way better than they are. I’d be interested to hear your opinion after you’ve used on of these computers.
Best,
Kristin
Well, I ordered a couple. As a marketer, if this is new audience, great. I need to see what they see.
Chances are I’m also going to blow away the Fedora Core install and build my own Linux distro for the box. In terms of hardware, it’s got mic in, line in, video in, and a browser with wi-fi, which pretty much makes it a seesmic/utterz/twitter station, regardless of what else it can do.
Kristin - if you’re expecting performance, these machines are not it. I would expect the same performance and speed you get out of an iPod Touch or iPhone, which most of the time is good enough.
What an awesome program! Equally important as getting computers into peoples hands is getting them network access. A lot of rural villages are still only connected to the outside world by foot traffic. There is a really creative program going on in Nepal that uses wireless technology and solar panels to literally bounce the internet up the sides of mountains to network local schools and communities to the rest of the world:
http://www.nepalwireless.net/contribute.php
and
http://himanchal.org/
My mom was just volunteering at one of the villages and it was amazing to be able to talk to her via IM from a place she had to hike a day to reach. It has had a huge impact on the students and villagers.
FYI, if you want more info on OLPC see its wiki at
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home and thru third party sources at http://www.olpcnews.com/
Interested in Squeak? See
* http://www.squeakland.org/
* Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/)
* Etoys http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Etoys
[…] more I read about the Give one, get one program, the more I like it. Recently discovered tidbits: $200 tax break and […]
We should build educational media designed to reach these new nodes. Videos showing kids how to make their own media that is optimized for the OLPC.
Giving a kid a computer is only the first step.