[Air-l] India Rejects One Laptop Per Child

[Rick Duque]

Wojciech,

I am compelled to respond to this one.  And please, I
beg of you to forgive my contriteness and my spelling
and my fluid prose... those who hate this kind of
stuff, please do us both a favor, click away, click
away.. go to dailykos.com if you have to, but click
away.

I was in Tunis at the Kram center when Kofi Annan
broke the handle on the prototype of the "laptop for
every child" during a photo opp demonstration. 

It was a small embarrassment I am sure.... and
something that first world engineers can insure will
never happen the next time Kofi Annan or President
Bush or Bill Gates cranks up one of these lil portable
"western cultural diffusions" in a box.

I know it is hard to see this from any other way than
from "our way" living in relatively predictable
metropolitan areas or suburbs where street lights work
and trash is collected on time and when you have a
natural disaster there actually is an agency to come
out and fix the suburbs and fix the street lights and
the make sure the trash gets picked up on time... 

Having lived through Katrina and heard all the gasps
of horror over FEMA's mismanagement of the
preparedness and clean up... I was humbled when my
Filipino colleague said... "If this had happened in my
country, people would not be waiting for any
assistance... there is none and never had been. At
least you can complain about an agency that exists..."
Humbled I was... cause it was fun to poke at an actual
agency... no fun to know you are out on a limb with no
one coming to rescue you...and no agency to poke at...
for fun or serious.

So of course from our vantage point in the more
predictable world, for lack of a better phrase, it
would be crazy not to think... computers are good,
Internet is good... no duh.  If given a chance, even
our pampered dogs should have laptaps that work on
kibbles and bits. 

Why resist this obvious gift... this obvious gift....
like 50 years of development was not gift enough?

So India is rejecting this "gift" like they are
discovering the futility of their telecenters... that
were suppose to connect their most rural areas to "the
predictable world" and perhaps some of it was suppose
to seep out to them. How, by the magical digital
information coming in (thus letting them know this
predictable world out there exists) and the new found
digital political will to "get them some of dat"? That
is magic for sure.

For reasons that Microsoft India, who did the study,
can discuss in more detail, Indian telecenters simply
did not make economic sense, perhaps because they made
no cultural sense in these settings... And this may be
why giving the children of a rural community, twice
the population of the United States, crank laptops
might not work either. 

Why it may not work in Africa either... although I bet
you the Africans don't resist the gift... they have
become accustomed to hand outs for so long... I think
the saying is... "take it all, and let God sort it out
later."  I am sure they can turn those laptops into a
towering sculpture, a drab green shrine to development
somewhere in the lush Congo or, better, sell the scrap
metal for roofing, if they can't black market the
laptops themselves.  I can see it now... a rural
serene African village with the parents working in the
sweatshops or trying to eek a living from dry earth
and the kids learning their ABC's from Count Dracula
at sesamestreet.com, when out of the bush a guerilla
force sweeps in to steal away the laptops and the
kids.... selling the laptops for arms and training the
kids to use them for their bloody insurrection.

Even Bill Gates, once he visited Africa, touched its
dry soil, smelled the sweet acidity of humanity, even
he figured it out very quickly there.  He said, and I
paraphrase here, but anyone can google it if they
object to my subjective take of what he said... "These
people do not need computers or Internet, they need
medicine, food, security from war...." I am sure I
messed that up, but that is my take of what he said. 

Of course someone could argue that if they had
computers and the Internet perhaps they would have
medical treatment and food and security cause they
could buy it all on ebay... or more directly they
could become informed, innovate on their own, or
politically network to demand these things... That is
the hope... the cyber optimism, no?

But then one could argue...and I would tend to be
persuaded by this argument having traveled to Africa
many times over the last half decade on research... on
this very topic....that in order for these places to
sustain these technologies, they need so much more
than just laptops....not only in terms of proper
infrastructure and logical policy, those things we
take for granted in our "predictable world" where the
street lights work and the trash is picked up on
time....

And even if they had these things, perhaps they could
develop a culture that does not look upon these life
changing technologies with such distrust...but then
eventually they would have our culture... and then
they could develop these technologies on their own,
when they were ready for them.... instead of investing
the limited resources they have now, and more
tragically the seemingly limitless hope for change
they invest, only to be disappointed once again.

Fifty years... fifty years... of get rich quick
schemes... of its just around the corner... or one day
over the rainbow.... you would think they would be
tired of that by now... since the only ones that got
rich where the ones who were rich to begin with...
those offering the handouts...and the poor stayed poor
if not poorer...the cruel calculus or the paradox of
development, which ever floats your boat: those with
the most, need the least, and pay the least for what
they need... those with the least, need the most, and
pay the most for what they need... and not in nominal
terms...when you talk about Internet connectivity, it
is in real terms. We get the juice wholesale cause we
produce it, naturally... they get it at retail, after
a few multinational communication companies turn it
over a few times for a nice profit.

But the Africans never tire...and we never tire... it
just makes for good business, selling them tractors,
pharmaceuticals, military arms, development experts,
of which my dad was one, and now internet
connectivity... And their elite's fill their bellies
and their Swiss bank accounts... It is a good game
that has gone on so long... I don't even think it is
obvious to anyone anymore. It is like the sun and the
moon.

But the Indians... they tire...of the same ole same
ole...

And we in the more predictable world, we are aghast
they do not see it like we do... it is so obvious:
stop war, plant stronger crops, hire people of merit
and not your son or cousin, buy coca cola, buy levis,
buy Marlboro... become modern like us... see???? See
how modern we are??? How predictable and convenient
our lives are??? So predicable and convenient that we
may have caused global warming, that has shifted the
rains north, that is creating drought that is creating
famine that is creating political instability that is
creating genocide and continuing the cycle of poverty
and war..."and in this place we are to take these
magic boxes for our children and make it all
better???? Obvious, of course!" says the poor African
refugee.

But back to India, before I end this way to long
response to what I know was a well intended thing a
"person from the predictable world" would say. I feel
your frustration, man, I do. 

So I think India is at that place were 14% of their
population, middle class... no small number by the
way, can support an indigenous ICT industry. And this
industry can produce culturally significant tools to
meet their needs in their own way, at their own pace,
with out waiting for the hand out... that is never
really a hand out.  They know they will pay more in
the long run if they take that hand out... and not
just in bandaging up a half billion lil fingers that
get hurt when the crank breaks or the millions of
prescription glasses they will need to provide...hand
outs are never free... and worse when the hand out
does not even solve the problem you are left paying
for something that was a waste to begin with. That is
insult to injury... and I think the Indians have tired
of that same ole same ole...

Anyone want to go out on a limb and say that these
laptops will solve the problem, forever, foreverever?

...I hear crickets...

Anyone?

Ferris?

Ferris Buhler?

Well if it does not solve the problem, then why buy
into the same ole same ole?...Hey if you think it is
so great, get your kids one. I can bet you, if these
laptops hit the developing world, you will be finding
them at a flea market near you very soon, if not on
ebay.  I mean who would not want a self cranking
laptop?... Keep it in the box, mint condition, go on
PBS's Antique Road Show in the year 2050 and see what
you can get for it. 

"Mmmmm, nice piece you have hear... you say you got
this from your great great grandfather who was doing
some aid work in Africa in 2006 to 2008... well I have
to tell you... that is the time frame for this
piece... and you can see on the back side...the
crusted blood of the little African child.... yes.. no
doubt occurred when the guerilla fighter ripped it
from his little boney hands... well this is a find...
you don’t see these in this condition anymore...really
a find... I think you might get at least 100,000
dollars for it. Maybe more at auction.... mmmm, yes...
quite..."

And that is how it works.. the rich get richer.

My sincerests apologies for this tirade... I do this
only once a year... I promise.  And if the message I
responded to was in jest or this all was hashed out
weeks ago during a proper discussion, double
apologies... double apologies.

Rick Duque


 





--- Wojciech Gryc <wojciech at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Keeping in mind the long discussion that was posted
> a few weeks ago with
> regards to the merits (or lack thereof) of the One
> Laptop Per Child project,
> I thought this may interest subscribers of this
> list:
> 
> HRD rubbishes MIT's laptop scheme for kids
>
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1698603,curpg-1.cms
> 
> So India has decided against the One Laptop Per
> Child Project (for now). Two
> arguments that stood out for me:
> 
>    1. Poor rural children often have health problems
> that may be
>    exacerbated by laptop use, especially those
> affecting eyesight and
>    children's backs.
>    2. No developed country has universalized laptops
> for children, so why
>    should India?
> 
> I must say that the first argument is a perfect
> example of how people in
> developed countries often lack the foresight and
> local knowledge required to
> adequately decide whether a technology truly is
> "appropriate". Forget the
> merits to education or the potential for
> employability skills -- those are
> secondary to the potentially negative health effects
> of the laptops.
> 
> Thanks,
> Wojciech Gryc
> 
> -- 
> 
> Five Minutes to Midnight:
> Youth on human rights and current affairs
> http://www.fiveminutestomidnight.org/
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