Voices en Español

Three years ago Nicolas Negroponte, a former head of the M.I.T. Idea Lab, came up with the idea One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). A $100 laptop in the hands of 150 million poor children. A small, lightweight computer that is powered by the sun and doesn’t run Microsoft Windows and doesn’t use Intel computer chips. On the surface, it sounded like a great idea. A bold and ambitious plan. The idea was to meld technology and education in a small, affordable package for some of the world’s poorest communities.

So, what happened? The dream ran smack into reality. First, is the cost. The price has gone up to around $188 because of components. Second, is the competition. Intel, a U.S. computer chip company that normally isn’t in the business of selling computers, launched it’s own budget-priced laptop called the Classmate. You can’t radically alter the status quo and expect the Big Boys (Intel, Microsoft, etc.) to not sit up and take notice.

Although a few countries in Latin America have pledged to buy the machines, — (Urugary has promised to buy 100,000 of the laptops, Peru has placed an order for 265,000, and Mexican billionaire Carlos Sim has bought 50,000 of the laptops) — other countries that initially expressed interest, have now gotten cold feet. Officials from Libya and Nigeria say they don’t like the fact that the computers don’t run Windows and they worry about what kind of technical support users can expect to get. Plans to get Argentina to buy 1 million of these laptops appears to have been put on the back burner, according to news reports, and now the effort appears to be geared at getting wealthier countries, like Spain and the U.S., among others, to buy the computers and donate them. In fact, where the OLPC seems to be gaining fans is, (surprise, surprise), in the U.S. where the Give One Get One program has gained traction.

But while so many in the media have hailed the OLPC idea, few have talked extensively about whether or not millions of plastic laptops are really the answer to world poverty. John C. Dvorak over at MarketWatch got down to brass tacks in a column he wrote last year that caused a stir among tech bloggers. But he raised some legitimate points. When people don’t have the basics — like clean water, a roof over their heads, electricity and food to eat — is putting a laptop in the hands of impoverished children really the best use of finite resources?