[H]omer wrote:
High Plains Thumper spake thusly:
The chief executive officer of Dell computers, Michael Dell,
has criticised the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.
Speaking to an audience of CIOs at the Gartner ITxpo
conference in Orlando on 10 October, Dell said that kids in
developing "need food and medicine," and not laptops.
He's an idiot.
If a community is suffering from typhoid, does one simply keep
feeding that community antibiotics in perpetuity, or does one
tackle the insanitary conditions that /led/ to that outbreak?
Conditions -> Problems -> Symptoms.
So Dell would rather keep throwing money at the symptoms, like
putting a band-aid on a burst artery.
The root cause of most problems in the third world is lack of
education, which then /causes/ poverty, which subsequently
leads to all the other problems like starvation and disease.
Yes, there are other issues too, like corruption and military
conflict, but somehow I don't think a PC manufacturer is in a
position to do much about /those/ problems.
Negroponte /is/ however in a position to help tackle the
/root/ cause of the education problem, by at least /trying/ to
give the third world a measure of parity with the West, in
terms of computer skills.
There is that old saying (since I didn't have it memorised):
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/english-idioms-sayings/6618-teach-man-fish.html
or http://tinyurl.com/yo9hou
[quote]
1. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to
fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
2. Confucius, K'ung Fu-tzu, K'ung-tzu, Kong Zi, Kong Qiu, Zhong
Ni Circa 551 - 479
[/quote]
Those laptops will help grade school and higher grade children
(because the programs can be changed and upgraded) an opportunity
to learn about the computer. Exposed at an early age will help
them as they grow older. Essentially this is similar to the
early days of the western world home computers. Kids were
learning how to program in the basic language, produce music
through learning I/O to the simplistic sound hardware, graphics
programming, even word processing through programme writing, etc.
The only thing the modern computer with Windows provides is
gaming experience. Gone is the very essence of the early
computers, the computer languages. Yes, the graphics and results
look more professional, but it was the grass roots learning that
was most important. Many a child got his/her start by these home
computers, long since gone.
--
HPT
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