That too to “for children from lower middle class background that cannot afford a good education and must rely on what the teachers at government schools provide”

And frankly you would be a fool to buy your kid a laptop like XO….
Teaching some basics like
(a) health/ nutrition/ hygine
(b) RRRs If i need to tell you this wasnt a growl i’d be missing the point

are important and no laptop woud teach that to your progeny.

And guess what for $350 you can get your kid a laptop.

And spare the world the virtually indestructible
All it needs if Flash memory(b/c hdd are more succeptible to mechanical problems) and another plastic layer over screen.

So it is true that the XO (the OLPC laptop) costs around 4 times the monthly salary of a teacher.

Now a question for you. Would you teach your child in a government school/college? I know that the answer would be no. But why not?

The answer is that the schools impart pathetic education. They literally kill any talent that the children may have.

XO is not an attempt to provide food to children. It is an attempt to provide a simple way for the poor but interested children to have a decent education.

The XO is not for famished children.

It is for children from lower middle class background that cannot afford a good education and must rely on what the teachers at government schools provide. The XO can provide access to the Wikipedia, to online books, that will allow them to study on their own, even if they cannot afford the books.

I have not studied in government school either, but my brother had the misfortune of attending such a school for a couple of years. That is a reason why I think that for the poor people the XO is the only way out.

Another problem is that the Indian government is not even interested in education its not an issue that wins votes. I don’t expect them to ever get XO in India.

BTW I will be buying one for my son, when it is available in India. It is a wonderful machine. I hope that other people in my community buy them too. They are great for children to communicate and be creative. My son loves computers a lot. But I am afraid of giving a normal laptop to him. He may break it. But XO is virtually indestructible.

[...]

> Please note that the $100 laptops—not yet in production—will not be available for sale. The laptops will only be distributed to schools directly through large government initiatives.

It’s the “will not be available for sale” that I find so troubling. Why wouldn’t you want to increase volume further by selling to the private sector? Even if you marked it up a certain percentage. Is there some concern that it’ll steal laptops from the hands of children? I’d like to see that issue discussed by the OLPC team. But I can understand that right now, they’re busy creating something. So I’ll reserve further judgement until the product comes out.

# As to the infant formula fiasco, that is pure crime that too against the poorest of the poor, and most innocent in the world -new born and very young children, the worst punishment would still not be painful enough for the perpetrators of this cruelty.

[...]

this is the first time im coming here, and boy, am i glad i did! its heartening to see another person saying this. its stunning, and a little frightening to see how thoroughly conditioned we are by media mainstream and corporate consumerist culture. technocracy sure has made its place into todays politics!

GREAT going!

This line of reasoning is totally off base. Debate about basic needs vs technology, or trickle down education vs primary only, but inserting cynical gripes about a non-profit educational project backed by people like Kofi Annan (watch out for his profit motive!) are totally off topic. There are far better, less complicated ways to make money than ripping off poor Indians.

In the face of issue, it is so important to maintain focus. When we lack the basic ammenities, say water to drink and flush, roof to sit and sleep, it is foolish to believe a laptop is a panaeca for primary education. Not to mention the profit motive of those backing sub-$100 laptop for 3′rd world.

Your thoughts(Media player et.al) are really pragmatic.

Last punch:: If children are to use laptops, what might be used in corporate trainings?

http://fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2005/11/index.html

I shall be attempting to put my reputation as a pioneer of personal computers behind the effort to discredit this approach.

Thank you, Atanu, for your words.

There was a period in the 60s when even the educated mothers in the West were convinced that formula was the way to go. An entire generation grew up on formula. It’s not only the poor who fall prey to the might of the PR machine.

In the 50s-60s, India embarked upon a series of hugely expensive industrialization ventures – dams, Bhakra Nangal, steel plants,cement, chemicals, whatnot, at the expense of everything else.

Then all of a sudden there was a ton of moolah spent on healthcare – family planning, nirodh, dpt ke teen teekay, sanjay gandhi forced sterilization fiasco, oral rehydration formulae etc.

Then a lot of telecom projects, mobile telephony, deregulation, STD & ISD booths all over the place…

Now these laptops, call centers & IT ventures are seen as a panacea to everything under the sun.

In another 20 years, we’ll look at every problem as though it is somehow related to genetics & bioengineering!

It becomes very clear if you just take the time to talk to a few policymakers, MPs & the bereaucrats. See who has their ear. Everytime I come to India, I make it a point to meet a few members in the secretariat & do just that.

Initially, we gave a lot of weight to civil engineers & architects. For a lot of 50s kids, civil engg was the thing to do. Naturally, they graduated, invested heavily in that sort of thing & got politicos to listen to them. So you saw dams all over the place.

Then doctory became the in-thing. Everybody got themselves an MBBS & MD & FRCS & all sorts of medical diplomas & every problem was seen as – arrey just solve smallpox in India first, later on we’ll build dams. First provide free DPT vaccine. First make sure no kid dies of diarrhoea, provide free oral rehydration….

Then electronics became paramount. Everybody wanted something to do with telecom. Sam Pitroda was seen as some kind of God, & you had unnecessarily high numbers of units…20-30 STD booths on a single road, as though every Indian was dying to talk to another Indian over the phone! Soon the mobile thing took off & now the market is saturated with SMS & MMS & umpteen cellphone players.

Somewhere around this time, Narayan Murthy & Premji became the darling icons, & everybody wants to get an IT degree. So what is the solution of illiteracy in Indian villages ? Why, it is the $100 laptop! Give every Indian villager 1 laptop & no more illiteracy, all Indians will benignly surf the web & post erudite pieces on BPOs on the indianeconomy blog!

Like I said, give it 20 years. Then we’ll talk about genetically modifying Indian brains so they all forego any shred of leftist thought & become pure 100% neocon capitalists & rise by their bootstraps & incorporate as LLCs & spawn multinational corporations on every streetcorner, hawking everything from cellphone to yes….infant baby formulae.

-bowerbird

p.s. content will come from the o.c.a.

1) Would a laptop be useful to a school going kid ?
2) What is the best way to procure and distribute these laptops ?

The issue of how effectively a school going kid can use a laptop could be settled by doing some pilot studies (provide kids with laptops and see if they learn better).As Atanu points out, TV is a good medium of instruction and the content could be distributed on DVD’s or even via satellite broadcast. However, the TV medium has its problems
(retainability of information is low, there is poor or no interactivity, one can’t go back to an earlier show, programming is expensive, locally produced programming is of poor quality etc.). Laptops are in many ways complementary to TV’s and cheap storage + excellent search facilities (e.g Google/Yahoo desktop search) + open source content (e.g. Wikipedia) could enable the child to carry a lot of good information on his laptop and retrieve it at will. This could perhaps even eliminate the need to study crappy textbooks. Media such as “flash” could also make the learning more interactive. Once the kid has a laptop, there is still the problem of getting useful content into that laptop. However, it is not very expensive to distribute such information using CD’s or even by datacasting using satellites.

An open market system (such as the one that exists for PC’s) could be used for the procurement and distribution of laptops. The Media lab will hopefully make the Intellectual property around the design of the laptops open. Since these laptops will use Linux/GNU, the Copyleft license will ensure that the software that runs on these will also be open.

Pranay, you can be rest assured that while the Indian government is capable of thinking about purchasing 10 million laptops, it will never ever think about spending an equivalent amount of money for the purpose of feeding and educating the same set of people for which it will claim to purchase these laptops.

Exactly my point! So if the Indian government is not going to spend it on feeding and educating these people, at least let it spend on laptops (rather than the money going to corrupt politicians to buy farmhouses in Gurgaon).

On another thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get laptops that could be cranked up to work even when power fails? and for $100! Incredible! Now if we could only get genuine broadband to India that works even when the power fails…pff.

More possibilities with free software….

This does not mean that if India bought one less fighter plane we would suddenly have 1 million educated kids. Similarly, if tomorrow, India decides to buy 10 million laptops, it would not normally mean that they would not be getting what they were getting earlier.

Pranay, you can be rest assured that while the Indian government is capable of thinking about purchasing 10 million laptops, it will never ever think about spending an equivalent amount of money for the purpose of feeding and educating the same set of people for which it will claim to purchase these laptops.

One can argue about the utility of such an action and wonder who in reality will really benefit from such a purchase. Surely, it will benefit the coffers of the folks involved since they can claim to be the smart ones to have made such a decision and have to take their cut from it. They have the incentive to make such a foolish decision. Surely, it will benefit the manufacturers for without being able to sell their product, their business is a failure (they cannot afford the costs unless they can sell a large number of such laptops). Will it really benefit the large uneducated and hungry masses which it is targeted for ? That is the most important question which should influence the manufacturing decision. Surely, there will be a few children who will benefit from such an action but the arguement here is that a large fraction of the masses need food, shelter, sanitation and basic education which they can apply in their lives rather than a laptop. They will the ones to suffer the most since the money has to ultimately come from somewhere !!

Take a look at the MIT lab FAQ at
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html. It clearly lists that one of the reasons for it to be able to lower cost to such a number is the need for large scale production ie scale of manufacture is an important aspect in reducing cost. If the number of units manufactured comes down, it means that the cost goes up.

The question which needs to be addressed before manufacturing such a laptop is who is the target of the $100 laptop and which group can really benefit from it. How many of such a group exist in each developing country and is the size of that group sufficient to offset the manufacturing cost. I wonder if this question has been thought about and I’d like to see MIT labs publish answers to these questions on its website to justify such an action.

Just as a note, another thing to remember is that laptops needs some form of power which again is a limited and not easily available resource for a large fraction of this countries population. Sure, this will change the dynamics of the target group since only one who can afford at least a limited form of power to recharge these laptops frequently can make efficient use of such laptops.

PS: I hear that these laptops like emergency radios will have a power crank which can be used to charge the battery. I’m curious to learn how much cranking is needed for charging the battery sufficient enough to run the machine for one hour in a power efficient mode.

it is important to note in the east-west comparison (my frame of comparison being middle and low income households) that while formula is initially handed out free of charge and subsequently subsidised in the west, this is not largely the case in india. formula is in fact the costly option which the poor mother can ill afford accounting for breastfeeding rates inadvertantly being among the highest globally in india and bangladesh. as a student of public health in the US, i would proudly present results of this (unintended) success story. this is one area, besides traditional medicine, where the west is actually emulating us.

while i wouldnt defend the agenda of formula companies out to earn profits, I believe a lot of their zeal to promote their product in recent times comes from the change in health norms. most of us (today in our 30s and 40s) are largely formula fed babies, not because our mothers were working, but because it was believed that a formula baby, definitely bonnier in appearance for breastmilk has no fat, was a healthier baby (latest research of course shows evidence of lower IQ besides lower immunity). the same with giving water to an otherwise exclusively breastfed baby (there is no need since breastmilk is a complete food + there is risk of infection as you mention). health norms have evolved as they do, with current WHO recommended best practices being as recent the last decade.

moving up the income ladder, as a practitioner i conduct a prenatal session in one of mumbai’s more swanky obstetric clinics. i see two kinds of moms – those like myself nursing all the way to the first birthday or at least for 6 months, and those who are looking for ways out of breastfeeding for cosmetic reasons. so here’s one easily identifiable commonality across all income groups – the uneducated and irresponsible mother – one unfortunately caught in the cycle of malnutrition and early conception, the other waiting to get back on her diet (a nursing mother is a very hungry mother) and pilates.

(if you are interested in country-wide stats, a really good place is the national family health survey – II. the reports, some of which you can find on the internet carry good analysis)

The $100 laptop is nothing special in the irony that it exhibits. Even the NCERT textbooks in India have diagrams and footnotes in some chapters listing some trivia usually like ‘The cost of one F-16 is equivalent to opening 1000 schools or educating 1 million students’.

This does not mean that if India bought one less fighter plane we would suddenly have 1 million educated kids. Similarly, if tomorrow, India decides to buy 10 million laptops, it would not normally mean that they would not be getting what they were getting earlier.

To use a rather cliched term, it would go a long way in empowering Indians. Some kids are exceptional, they demand exceptional knowledge and exceptional resources in order to fulfil themselves. These are the kids who grow up to be leaders and pioneers. Buying a few million laptops might mean a billion dollars going where most people do not think they should be going, but it would mean that at least a few thousand exceptionally bright children get the means to dream beyond the obvious.

Yes, it is a highly inefficient way to progress intellect, but it does work.

Another thought, was wondering if you’ve had the chance to see the movie ‘Wall Street’.

where on TV can a villager find spot prices for organic basmati?

it may be that mobile phones are more useful than 100 laptops, but i am really not sure of your logic here.

it seems to me that the TV is the formula milk. TV is the killer. the laptop on the other hand may provide some real nourishment, in that it allows the kid to put something back into the world, rather than just learning MTV.

if you’re making a case for free content from MIT learning labs or something, i might understand this.

but why go with last century’s technology – tv?

Why is that poor and illiterate are considered more moral or ethical than educated and rich? I don’t understand this romanticizing of the poor. For instance, I have asked this question, ‘why is it that the poor have more kids’? I have read all kinds of reasons, but all these reasonings show poor in poorer light.

Awareness without action induces guilt within . How do you seek the solution ? – by spreading the awareness further ?

Isn’t it all about a question of priorities and isn’t it the responsibility of our beloved leaders to be able to weight the pros and cons of any idea before jumping into it ? Food, shelter, sanitation, eduction are the basic amenities required by every human being and thinking about providing secondary needs like a laptop to those whose primary needs are not satisfied displays the naivety of the thinker. I’ll digress a bit and mention that I think one of the very fundamental responsibilities of the leaders of India should be to gather and monitor statistics which reflect the state of India :- population, how many people are assured of a meal on a daily basis, histograms demonstating educational qualifications of the masses, histograms demonstrating how many of those who are education have the ability to leverage that education in their day to day life, statistics about those who have and can afford a shelter, statistics about the availability of reliable and robust, and so on. These are more important than focussing on the mundane and absolutely useless things which our leaders and media focus on.

That said, I think the idea of a $100 laptop is a creative one and will help at least those who have the ability to leverage the power of computing and the internet, but at the same time cannot afford it for cost reasons. I admit I have not yet read much about the “one laptop per child idea” and have only just heard of it. If the thinking is that the cost of production of a laptop will be brought down to $100 because of the scale of operation rather than improvement in the manufacturing technology, then I think the manufacturers should re-think the idea. They need to clearly rethink whom they intend to target as the consumers. If the thinking is that the solution to this problem can be achieved by leveraging improved technology, then I think it is a wonderful challenge to focus on without focussing on how this would be applicable later on.

I like the idea of decreasing the cost and improving the availability of computers but that should never come at the cost of primary needs like food, sanitation, shelter, education.

* Those numbers are true at least in rural areas. I suspect the costs might be higher when talking about urban areas.

Another one of our partners working in Himachal told us of a donation of a computer system to a local school thru a Microsoft program. But the problem was there was no electricity to run it on so it was “inaugurated” by some minister with fanfare and then was lying there collecting dust.

I don’t think it is a matter of prioritizing or deciding how much money to spend on elite and how much on masses. It is a question of using the appropriate solution for the problem at hand. No matter how much money is spent it is useless until it is spend “Effectively”. If money is spent effectively and ALL kids in India indeed get good education till highschool or even primary school, the human capital generated will accelerate the economy greatly. The output generated will surely produce good quality colleges and also give people the resources to pay for higher education. There will obviously be more demand for higher education too. Human capital is the wealth production engine. Laptops in themselves are not bad, but the idea of giving thousands when hundred would suffice is surely motivated by profits.

Sometimes you are exceptional.

Deeshaa reports that lack of breastfeeding is killing million of Third World infants.
http://www.deeshaa.org/2005/11/05/formula-for-milking-the-digital-divide/

Intressant finds out the stunning figures of child laborers in…

Atanu’s reponse: Sukumar, thanks for the comment. The conditions in the poor parts of the world are truly deplorable and those conditions need change.

Just for the record, I think that corporations must make profit but must not do any harm in their goal to make profits. Unlike the pinkos, I am firmly in the business of letting businesses do what they do — sell goods and services for a profit.

So, I think the argument can be made that this is the same principle as the IITs, and that principle is basically a version of trickle down education. But trickle down education makes a lot more sense then trickle down economics. So it’s a mattter of balance. You have this parameter (how much money to spend on the elite vs. how much money to spend on the masses) and it has to be controlled by two separate considerations–one is, that every dollar spent on the elite is a proportional dollar stolen from many more masses, and the other is that you can’t have a nation of students just educated in primary school.And then you have to really rigorously account for both of those considerations all the time, and consider the effects emphasisizing one over the other will have quantitatively, and vary the parameter accordingly. It’s always a multivariable balancing act.

Your post is a very good reminder to remember the consideration of the money stolen from the masses and balance the parameter appropriately. I’m sure we too often forget it, perhaps almost always. However, I don’t quite see the extent of the parallel between this situation and the really deplorable milk situation you have explain so lucidly and powerfully. In that scenario really, nobody benefitted except the corporation selling the good. A very small percentage of children whose mothers could not provide breast milk could have benefitted, but they could have easily been reached through much more targetted marketing and outreach–a campaign that said, “IF you CANNOT breastfeed THEN we can help you.” However, in the computer model the students who DO get the laptops benefit, and arguably so does the government paying for them. The nation as a whole may not have acquired maximum benefit from money spent (that depends on optimizing the two parameters) but it has acquired something for its money.

What does hold, of course, is the realization that no government or society or consumer can rely on the merchant selling to them for an accurate assesment of what’s in their best interests.

Atanu’s response: Saheli, you write about “trickle down education” which is the IIT model–that is, teach a few at great public expense so that some of those will turn about and teach the others. Whenever I hear of trickle down theories, economics or education, I recall Galbraith’s earthier description of the phenomenon which is the “horse-and-sparrow” theory. Feed the horse more oats so that some of it will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

It is an interesting topic which I will discuss later.