Negroponte: A Complete Genius or Complete Nutter?

Although clearly Photo-shopped, the image says it all; who actually benefits from projects like the ‘One Laptop per Child’ scheme? Brian Winston critiques Nicholas Negroponte’s ‘sophisticated yet affordable laptop’ proposition as he undermines his argument and blatantly names him the Marie Antoinette of the 21^st Century. After having visited their official website I am reminded of gestures that organizations like Trade Aid, who seem genuinely wanting to help others. It seems that the negative hype surrounding the controversial issue is largely based on the idea that the money could be spent otherwise on more proactive ways that would directly benefit these communities in terms of providing them with sufficient basic needs to survive. What critics like Winston easily dismiss are the numerous other organizations like World Vision and Child Fund that are taking place simultaneously that are already collecting donations and funds from people around the world to provide such basic means for survival, although arguably more money could be spent in this area. Negroponte attempts to mitigate the digital divide between first and third world countries, whereby knowledge and education can be seen as an intervention to breaking the poverty cycle in the long-run. If the software and internet access to all kinds of information for example, have the potential to teach those to live off the land, build communities, gain technical skills and eventually have the opportunity to work ‘anytime and anyplace’ as the internet promises, then why not?

Idealistically, it is a generous gesture to help those in need and providing education for third world countries where the poverty cycle may be considered the norm. In terms of what such effects of cheap mass-produced technologies may be doing, as Winston suggests towards the article, is creating increasingly sophisticated and more affordable technology that other corporations can efficiently imitate and distribute to developed countries. In addition to this, even before the economic turmoil and recession hit we have seen many jobs disappearing as corporations attempt to maximize profits and efficiency. Local residents are made redundant as their positions were outsourced to third world countries so that ‘we’ living in developed countries, can have increasingly more affordable access on the behalf of countries living below their means. Will the negative effects of globalization be the outcome of such schemes? If we continue to outsource work to locations with the lowest wages, worker protection, health and safety benefits, are people in developing nations any better off? Perhaps the ‘One Laptop per Child’ scheme is a start to something more revolutionary; whether it is implementing collective intelligence or creating ‘social/smart mobs’ that can potentially overthrow corrupt government officials—only time will tell.

Negroponte and the Third world

Nicholas Negroponte wishes that every third world child needs to be given a laptop because he believes that without education all other developments are considered as a fail and that computers provide a solution to education which will save the world.

I understand where he is going with one laptop per child policy as nowadays computers are an essential tool for education for all levels of students, but for third world countries, for me I don’t think he quite realizes what is truly important. It has to be taken into account that he is trying to help those third world countries but I think he needs to think not from his own perspective but from the other perspective. The fact is that third world countries need necessities in order to survive. I found out some information and it shows that in Asian, Latin American and African countries over 500 million people are living in absolute poverty and every year 15 million children die of hunger and more than 100 million will die within a decade because of illnesses and starvation. What I’m trying to say is that Negropontes idea of one child per laptop doesn’t apply in the third world country. It needs food, medicine and basic shelter in order to survive. Providing Laptops for education is something that needs to be taken into consideration after these nations have reached a level where people are not dying due to hunger and shortage of medicines.

From the way I look at it, Negroponte needs to live in a third world country even just for a few days and realize that even surviving for a day is a struggle for those people and by providing these people with laptops isn’t going to be of a help. For me I think Negroponte doesn’t have a clue of what life is like in the third world countries. If he knew, he wouldn’t be implementing his policy on how, one child per laptop will help those malnourished third world countries by improving access to education, which will eventually save the world. Negroponte is living in his own dream world as his policy doesn’t help at all with the needs of the third world country.