[Olpc-open] free laptops

[Edward Cherlin]

You have made a good start.

"Conversations with Ian Bicking helped convince me that believing in
this project is a ultimately a matter of faith, in which case our
optimism or cynicism go a long way towards shaping reality. And our
perceptions are often shaped by media, so lets start advocating for
this project instead of kicking it in the shins."

But it is not just a matter of faith. If we believe in a project, we
do things to make it happen. Slavery was not ended in the British
Empire by faith, but rather by tireless campaigning over a period of
50 years, with rallies, songs, campaign buttons, letters to the
editor, and all the rest, resulting in a mass consumer boycott of
sugar produced with slave labor, and finally an Act of Parliament.

Here we have many more ways to take part. Techies can contribute to
the hardware and software of One Laptop Per Child. People with any
sort of useful knowledge can create free educational materials, and
everybody can get on the Net and talk to their friends, their
political representatives, and the poor. Well, those of the poor who
have any kind of connection. Or we can work on getting them
connections. The phone companies are about to engage in a mad rush to
deploy WiMax wireless technology to all the urban areas of the world.
Programs have been announced in the US and Pakistan. So the rest of us
only have to work on getting from the towns to the villages that lie
more than 30 miles away. A really good bake sale or raffle can cover
the cost of a village wireless connection and hotspot (less than
$1,000).

The World Bank estimates that $40 billion annually would see the world
through to the UN's Millennium Development Goals by 2015. (Most of
that is needed for health programs.) Consider that Americans spend
more than $100 billion on Christmas presents. So if we can convince
people to divert some money to gifts for the poor in the numbers that
boycotted sugar in the British Isles long ago, we can do this.

Well, you might think that that takes more faith than you currently
have. But give it a whirl. Send Christmas or other holiday greetings
to your friends, and tell them that you are contributing to the poor
in their names. Invite them to join you. Hey, a Christmas chain
letter! A legal one! Please do not spam this. Send it to people you
would send a holiday greeting to.

Oh, if you are wondering where to send the money, there is no shortage
of worthy charities. I suggest you look at Partners in Health and
Sarvodaya before you make your decision just for comparison, because
they are the most effective organizations I know of. But any
initiative to feed the poor, get them medical care, stop the various
wars that are so damaging to them, educate them, get them jobs, or
otherwise deal with their plight is welcome. We don't need one plan at
the expense of the others. We need all of them at once, fully funded
to the level of the needs. Which means that we need each of you to do
your bit and invite others to do likewise. No heroics, just community.
http://www.pih.org/ Haiti, Latin America, Africa, Russia...
http://www.sarvodaya.org/ Sri Lanka

For next year I have an even better Idea. Get a local school, church,
or serviice club to link to a village in some poor country. Work with
them on getting computers and an Internet connection, and then get
your children to talk with their children. Bring in teachers,
families, and the community. Find out what kinds of information they
need, and help them to get it.

And for the year after that, have your group go into business with
their new friends and colleagues. We can sell their products (art,
crafts, coffee, tea, music...) or act as their agents to get them
telecommuting jobs with businesses here. Junior Achievement can help
you do this through the schools, and there are many other
possibilities that I will be writing about as I find out more about
them.

And the year after that...I don't know. Let's think of something.
Wait, I just did. We'll teach the poor to make movies, and video blog,
and organize together, and...then stand back out of  the way. Half a
billion hungry children are coming to a Web site near you. I'd better
warn YouTube.

On 12/18/06, Jonah Bossewitch <mrenoch at phantomcynthetics.com> wrote:
> OK - this one is a bit less dry than the preparatory Plato piece that I
> wrote a few weeks back:
>
> http://alchemicalmusings.org/2006/12/19/free-laptops/
>
> I quote Papert, Moglen, Paul Everit and Ian Bicking, and tried to do a
> good job presenting this project in a really positive light.
>
> comments welcome.
>
> thanks,
> /Jonah
> _______________________________________________
> Olpc-open mailing list
> Olpc-open at laptop.org
> http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/olpc-open
>


-- 
Edward Cherlin
OLPC4USA
End Poverty at a Profit
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC4USA