|
Navigate DDN
|
NeoReading within the information revolution
I stand in support to delivering a laptop into the hands of every child for as many children as possible, as soon as possible, free, and for the global human right to free education for all, without borders, for ever.
That is why I supported the OLPC
Now I have some concerns about where the whole OLPC is heading:
First is the distribution of the OLPC: Clearly, I see the a strategic digital divide in the current distribution mode of the OLPC, Clearly the OLPC distribution has been deflected to where children are far less needy of an OLPC. I believe the OLPC adopted a strategy and a mode of distribution that go against the original spirit of the idea of the OLPC as a concept.
Here is a map :
http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440255169&src=flash_map&sig=visitor_map&src_mvid=137440332484&origin=unknown&ct=seemore
And it does not look like the actual distribution of the OLPC is much better than this map, or that it is actually heading toward bridging (or ending) the global child education divide, while the original vision statement of the OLPC, was , and still is ( as in the OLPC web site) about the children from the third world!
Second is the turmoil at the top of the OLPC, where it feels like the whole OLPC has been hijacked from above ! ... Here are some of the news that make me worry :
"
Charles Kane, OLPC's finance chief and a former software company executive, is stepping into the role of president and chief operating officer following last month's resignation of president Walter Bender. Bender had adamantly opposed efforts by the organization's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, to depart from a pure open-source-software approach and include a version of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system on the laptops.
While Kane wouldn't talk specifics about Microsoft, he made it clear which way OLPC is heading. "The OLPC mission is a great endeavor, but the mission is to get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible," he said. "Whether that technology is from one operating system or another, one piece of hardware or another, or supplied or supported by one consulting company or another doesn't matter."
"It's about getting it into kids' hands," he continued. "Anything that is contrary to that objective, and limits that objective, is against what the program stands for."
Bender is the architect of an open-source interface known as Sugar, which runs on the Linux operating system and is designed to allow children to easily collaborate on documents, art, music, and other projects. For example, with Sugar, activating a tool that allows two children using different laptops to edit the same document requires a single mouse click. Such novelties suit the interface to the so-called constructionist model of education, in which children learn by collaborating and creating.
Bender says that his biggest fear is that if OLPC embraces Microsoft, it will "become just another laptop company" whose products run Windows and Microsoft-compatible programs. Negroponte says that the organization is working to ensure that Sugar can run smoothly on Windows.
Despite its technical achievements--including extremely low power consumption, innovative software, and extremely low cost--OLPC has sold few laptops, at least relative to its initial ambitions. About 500,000 machines have been delivered; early national adopters include Uruguay and Peru. In early 2006, however, Negroponte was predicting sales of more than 100 million machines by this year.
One reason for the slow uptake, Negroponte says, is that the existing computer systems of some government and educational bureaucracies around the world run on Windows. And in some countries, including Egypt, he says, the lack of Windows compatibility stalled interest. "When I went to Egypt for the first time, I met separately with the minister of communications, minister of education, minister of science and technology, and the prime minister, and each one of them, within the first three sentences, said, 'Can you run Windows?'" Negroponte says.
One future possibility is a "dual-boot" version of the OLPC machine, in which either Windows or Linux can be launched at start-up. Activating the Windows option, however, would likely require OLPC's customers to pay Microsoft a licensing fee of a few dollars per machine. If such a scheme were to materialize, Negroponte says, "I expect we will do a massive rollout in Egypt."
Negroponte says that within OLPC, the open-source scrap had become a distraction. "I think that means and ends, as often happens, got confused," he says. "The mission is learning and children. The means of achieving that were, amongst others, open source and constructionism. In the process of doing that, open source in particular became an end in itself, and we made decisions along the way to remain very pure in open source that were not in the long-term interest of the project."
Other computer makers, including Intel, are now developing ultralow-cost laptops. Bender says that OLPC's unique status as a nonprofit means that it should focus on developing educational tools that others can emulate. "I think what OLPC should be doing is demonstrating to the world that there is a scalable model of learning," he says. "The fact that Intel and other companies are all trying to build hardware is great. That actually means, what OLPC could do, going forward, is focus on the learning and how you scale the learning models."
"
Source : http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=20711&channel=biztech§ion=
Before that
"
OLPC has lost three top executives in the past few months. In January, ... . In February, Director of Security Ivan Krstić resigned from OLPC to protest the organization's restructuring and "radical" change in goals.
"
Source : http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144911/top_olpc_executive_resigns_after_restructuring.html
Note : OLPC lost Chief Technology Officer Mary Lou Jepsen holds a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (with honors) and a B.A. (req.) in Studio Art all from Brown University as well as a Master of Science in Holography from the MIT Media Lab. She invented the best parts of the OLPC laptop, its wonderful screen which stands right at top art and cutting edge of display technology: sunlight readable, ultra-low-power consumption, ultra-high-resolution, very inexpensive, and went from specification to mass-production-ready in 6 months. She supervised the laptop's ultra low power consumption and battery that can be recharged manually even by the power of a Child's hand. Also, she worked hard and took important part in adding the wireless mesh connectivity model to the laptop so that if one laptop in the class reaches the internet, the rest around it will also do, sharing nicely.
I do not know where OLPC's father, Nicholas Negroponte is taking the whole OLPC, and I do not by what rights he dictates now to the OLPC his newly changed goals!
What I see is that when the OLPC has achieved technical successes but distribution troubles, the technical people responsible for the success within the OLPC project had to leave, but the business people responsible for the distribution failure got promoted! Is this not absurd?
I have seen some fathers leave their children ... but I have never seen a mother leave her child, at least not while the child was still alive! ... So why did Prof. Mary Lou Jepsen leave the OLPC ?
Is the OLPC [as we knew it] still alive?
Is this "What Green Can Be" ?
Does anybody trust Microsoft, or any "profit company", to provide "FREE" global education to the children of the world?
I do not know ... please advise ! |
| |
|
June 1st, 2008 @ 3:59AM |
0 Comments
|
Post a Comment
|
|
| About Bakr |
| Information not available |
| [ profile ] |
| Bakr's Links |
| No links selected. |
|
| Get the RSS Feed of this blog. XML |
|
