One Laptop Per Child and Chicago
The OLPC program has officially stated the while the initial plan and long term goal is to benefit third world and impoverished countries, the only qualification for the laptops to be rolled out in a region is government buy in. One of the largest issues that the program has to overcome is to avoid or mitigate the problem of a black market forming around the machines. There is a lot to overcome in third world societies, and I fear that there will be too much time spent overcoming the problems and focus will be shifted away from the furthering of the program. It takes a long time to establish an education system, but a large number of machines can be sold into the black market in a matter of days. The loss of inertia for the program could be devastating.
There is a small push to introduce the program to the United States. I believe that this should be taken even further, and there needs to be a much larger installation here, in Chicago, with political support and a low amount of corruption. I think there could be potentially a huge cost savings for the Chicago schools overall, and more of a democratic approach to distribution of public school resources.
As I mentioned before, Google has an interest in developing a city wide network. I believe that offering the Chicago Wifi contract to Google (or another interested party possibly) in return for subsidizing the OLPC Chicago program has a massive amount of potential. Google not only gains the right to build the network in Chicago, but they also gain a much larger built in user base by supplying connectivity to the schools. What is now consolidated in the OLPC server system could just as easily be hosted at Google, by Google.
Chicago could reduce their costs by using Google’s wifi network as their school connectivity. They would get low cost machines for the students (and possibly even free depending on the depth of the subsidy) and free internet access for residents.
I think there is some hope here. I can see this as a big step forward for the OLPC program, and a good way to maintain a strong image in the face of many challenges.
Read the OLPC-Chicago mailing list thread here:
http://mailman.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-chicago/2007-May/000035.html
Category: Chicago, Politics, olpc 5 comments »
May 18th, 2007 at 11:49 am
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May 18th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I too think we’ll find OLPC XO’s on eBay moments after they ship in volume. There is too much demand here, which so far OLPC is adamant about not meeting.
http://www.olpcnews.com/people/negroponte/ebay_olpc_sales_inev.html
May 18th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I guess i just don’t understand why they are adament about not meeting the demands of the first world. I guess i udnerstand that they don’t want their developing nations project to be cooped (heh) but seriously. how is more money and resources going to break their project?
May 18th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I think that Andrew makes a good point in his follow-up to my email, also. Community is a big part of the OLPC project, so in the first world, where they are interfacing with standard laptops, a communications interface of some sort will be required.
http://mailman.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-chicago/2007-May/000036.html
May 18th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Scott… Great thoughts on this OLPC project. I agree with you that they would find an actual market and some serious traction here in the States, especially in the inner-city public schools.
It would allow them to further minimize per unit costs and they wouldn’t be so dependent on government money.
If the whole black market thing happens as you predict, governments will think twice before buying millions of units in the future.