Where do computers fit in the poverty cycle?

How about giving laptops to all kids from third world countries? Nicholas Negroponte must have spent way too much time in front of a screen.

Mass-producing sophisticated and fashionable lap-tops for the costs of only 100 dollars is Negroponte’s idea on how to help children in undeveloped countries. He almost convinced me when I had a look on his project’s website http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki and saw the healthy and happy children using his toy. What people, and that includes Negroponte himself, may not know, is that third world country children may not, and often do not, look as healthy as they do in those photos.

Has he thought about the fact that for one to make practical use of a computer device knowing how to read and write is elementary? Or perhaps the computers will come with schools and teachers attached to it and he forgot to inform the press. He argues that machines can take the place of traditional forms of education, but who is going to teach those kids how to use the machines? Their parents, who probably have less education than their own children? And who is going to teach them daily moral values? Perez Hilton? Has he thought about the fact that one needs to first eat so their brain can develop? Do his amazingly cheap computers, probably produced by malnourished kids in China, have the ‘food’ program? What will happen when the computers break? Is he going to teach them how to fix them, or is he implementing Apple stores, pardon me, MIT Media Lab stores, in slums without portable water? Oh, and he must have forgotten to mention that he is implementing free wireless in the whole Africa and South America.

Frankly Negroponte, as a marketing strategist, you are great, in fact, you are brilliant. As a philanthropist I’d say a few years working for UNICEF would do you good. Visiting a slum in South America and then re-thinking your project on how to spend billions of dollars to help kids in need would be a great start. Those kids need love, health care programs and education, a real one, with a real teacher who they can rely on to ask questions that are deeper and more complex than what is 2x2.

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