Saturday 5 January 2008

Life , Politics and Kids and OLPC


I am constantly amazed by how adults can at times act like children. I am also amazed by how common sense can be abanded in the name of profits. There is a wonderful program launched by MIT called One Laptop Per Child. The idea is to create a kid friendly, lowcost laptop that can be used in developing countries. The philosophy: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day , teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
Unfortunately the folks at Intel have been fighting with the folks at MIT and the results is-the kids lose. I was so hopeful when INTEL signed on, got a seat on the board and joined the OLPC project in July. Then last week the adults proved they could act like children and Intel pulled out right before the Las Vegas Tech show.
MIT launced a unique program in Novemeber called Buy One Give. For 400 dollars you could get you hands on one of these cool little machines and the second was donated to a child overseas. Check out the video below to see what can be accomplished with 200 dollars. The water proof, dust proof and drop proff case is just right for active kids! According to the New York Times the folks at Intel and MIT had differences over educational philosophy. The article goes on to point out that MIT wanted the INTEL folks to stop promoting another laptop Intel had developed called classmate.
The question for 2008..Isn't the sandbox big enough so that all the kids can play??


No comments: