[Oberon] Re. OLPC - One Laptop Per Child

[Douglas G. Danforth]

Johh,
Great references!
-Doug

John Drake wrote:
> --- Bob Walkden <bob at web-options.com> wrote:
>
>   
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch 
>>> [mailto:oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch] On
>>>       
>> Behalf Of 
>>     
>>> Aubrey.McIntosh at Alumni.UTexas.Net
>>> Sent: 13 December 2006 15:06
>>> To: ETH Oberon and related systems
>>> Subject: Re: [Oberon] Re. OLPC - One Laptop Per
>>>       
>> Child
>>     
>>> On 12/13/06, easlab at absamail.co.za
>>>       
>> <easlab at absamail.co.za> wrote:
>>     
>>>> OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines sounds good and
>>>>         
>> I think some of
>>     
>>>> its ideas will go into other products. But the
>>>>         
>> original 
>>     
>>> idea of villagers
>>>       
>>>> who are 100 km from mains electricity having
>>>>         
>> computer access seems
>>     
>>>> likely to fail.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Do those same villagers have cell phones?
>>>
>>>       
>> Many of them don't even have easy access to clean
>> water and basic
>> healthcare, and their children don't have classrooms
>> or pencils or
>> paper. Quite what they're expected to do with a PC
>> is beyond me.
>>
>> Bob
>>     
>
> And yet many do have access to cell phones, 
> electricity, computers ect.  Check out this 
> website.
>
> http://www.kiva.org
>
> There people in 3rd world countries (many of them
> African) sign up for micro loans.  These loans
> have a 99% repayment rate.  And yes, they
> sign up themselves over the internet.  Suprised?
> Internet access is not that uncommon in poor
> countries, although most use cybercafes.  (And
> yes, some abuse this which is why we get so much
> Nigerian "Help me recover the former dictators
> billions" spam.)
>
> As for pencils and paper, this could actually
> help alievate that.  Countries have to spend
> money buying new pencils and paper every year.
> And textbooks go out of date.
>
> The main issue would be would they get enough
> from the technology to justify the initial 
> expense?  I think the average American child 
> with a laptop does more with MySpace than
> anything else.  But the inclusion of 
> Squeakland is promising as it encourages
> end user programming.  As Papert once said
> "We should teach kids to use computers rather
> than teaching computers to use kids".
>
> As for the clean water deal, there's an
> easy way to make a water filter using nothing
> more than clay, coffee grounds and some
> cow dung.  Perhaps someday some child in
> a poor country may run across this information
> on a laptop. ;)
>
> http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1381331.htm
>
> Regards,
>
> John M. Drake
>
>
>  
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