This week we have been learning about networking as it relates to the One Laptop Per Child project. Let’s hear it straight from the horse’s mouth to start off with and talk about the Al Jazeera interview with Nicholas Negroponte:
Basically, in this interview we get a broad overview of the overarching goals of the One Laptop Per Child Project from inception to the product as finalized in 2007. After previewing in 2005, the project came widely under criticism both for lack of plausibilty as well as a widespread lack of sympathy for it’s mission: to provide cheap, durable, low power laptops to the most impoverished children in the world. Negroponte makes the point (which I didn’t consider but is totally true) children are “wired to learn” and that providing them with the basic tools to do so as well as a portal into oceans of material to learn from is a goal that is not just worthy or our attention but necessary for the world’s poor.
The calls and written questions fielded by Negroponte covered the gamut of the public’s concerns and skepticism about the project, for example the first call hit the debate dead on when they asked: why are we buying laptops for people who really need food and clean water?
