SeanBest

“Every time I read about the one-laptop-per-child program, I immediately think, how beneficial could a laptop be to a child who lives in a country with virtually no infrastructure?”

And this is the basic criticism leveled against Negroponte and his band of dreamers by anyone who is reasonable enough to consider such frivolities as food, water, and antibiotics. The OLPC project is an interesting initiative, but by no means will it revolutionize the third world. We are continuously told how wonderful it will be to have the children of an entire continent become fluent in the ways of open-source software and do-it-yourself hardware repairs. Sadly, more than 20,000 potential OLPC users will die every day from causes that are absolutely preventable.

The danger of the OLPC project is the extent to which it obscures the true nature of the problem and the most effective solutions. There is also something perversely ironic about shipping out Linux boxes while at the same time tightening intellectual property laws and pharmaceutical patents.