[OLPC library] Listening to the poor (was Re: [learningfromeachother] Content workflow)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:28 PM, Peter Burgess <peterbnyc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Colleagues
>
> I have not been a very active contributor to this discussion ... but have
> one issue that gives me great concern. Simply put, it is that most people
> want to learn, and the reason they want to learn is because the learning is
> going to have some value. Young children learn ... arguable it is part of
> their survival system ... and educators try to guide young people so that
> they will learn things that are going to be useful in a more complicated
> adult society.
>
> When I look at the problem of poverty ... the 2 billion that live on not
> very much ... it is apparent to me that there is a massive problem. What is
> the problem? It is a productivity problem in a very physical economy that is
> not going to be much impacted by information flowing through the OLPC
> initiative UNLESS in parallel with the information flows there are some
> action flows and work to fix the productivity issues, whatever they are.

Hence my plans to get appropriate technology for electricity
generation and Internet that we can place using microfinance, thus
enabling a great many more employment and business opportunities. And
my plans to get schoolchildren to connect around the world, and teach
them how to create sustainable international businesses together. We
will need at least a trillion dollars in new economic activity to
support the families of up to a billion children. Something like $1000
per child. Just about what a Grameen phone lady used to make renting
out a mobile phone, before the other villagers bought phones of their
own. But with computers and education, much greater opportunities will
appear.

I and others have identified opportunities for the children in
agricultural products, including coffee, tea, cacao and other
high-value products (if the communities can do the processing
themselves, and not just sell the raw beans, leaves, and pods. Simple
equipment would allow growers to sell fruit during a longer season, or
to supply a small juice, canning, or dried fruit business. Expansion
opportunities would be quite likely to appear. At a higher level,
educated children can offer IT services. Just as India has taken on
many outsourced jobs from the US, the towns will outsorce jobs from
the cities of India when appropriate infrastructure is in place,
allowing people to live in or near their family villages.

Many other opportunities would follow, such as shops to supply the
wants of the no-longer-quite-so-poor, small manufacturing, farm
equipment and supplies, and the rest of what we have seen in Japan,
Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and other places at various stages in
their development. Each of these countries and regions was considered
an economic basket case at one time or another, due to colonialism,
wars, and other disasters.

> My conclusion has been for a long time now that the best USE of the OLPC
> initiative would be to get information from these poor communities so that
> we can set about holding the world's leadership accountable for the mess
> that has been created by a legal and political system that is dysfunctional
> for pretty much all of the informal sector in the world ... a sector that
> serves probably well over half the world's population.

Peter may well be right here. I have often said myself that giving the
poor a voice could be the function with the greatest impact. Note that
communication also means the ability to cooperate with each other and
to make deals with the rest of the world. But dealing with corruption
and unaccountability is one of the most important activities in any
society. (And one that the US needs to get back to, also.)

> As I am often told by my friends the best solutions are when everyone ends
> up being happy ... the use of OLPC infrastructure to flow information from
> the community to an accountability system (Community Accountancy) does not
> preclude having the infrastructure also used for facilitating education, and
> all sorts of community information activities. I will argue, however, that
> ignoring the dysfunctionality issues and not having the information to
> address accountability is a formula for short term comfort and ultimate
> disaster.

Well, you are welcome to come into the community and suggest an Open
Source software project and an educational curriculum for dealing with
these issues. None of it happens unless someone steps up. It is not
that we are ignoring any of the genuine issues, but that we are all
pedaling as fast as we can, and there needs to be a lot more of us.

> Sincerely
>
> Peter Burgess
> ____________
> Peter Burgess
> The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York
> www.tr-ac-net.org
> Community Accountancy
> Integrated Malaria Management Consortium (IMMC)
> 917 432 1191 or 212 772 6918 peterbnyc at gmail.com

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay