They say: "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime." Professor Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Laboratory, had teaching in mind when he and other faculty members founded the One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization for designing and distributing a $100 laptop.

The device will be made available to ministries of education in developing countries—with Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Nigeria and Thailand as initial target recipients. A prototype was showcased November 2005 at the UN net summit in Tunis and production models are expected early this year.

It is a ruggedized machine that runs on power generated with a hand crank—the idea is to allow use in remote areas where electricity has yet to be distributed. According to Negroponte, the computer can use mesh networking so that children can interact while doing homework, and even share homework tips on a local community scale (see laptop.media.mit.edu).

Not everyone, however, agrees with the OLPC's objectives. Craig Barrett, Intel Corp. chairman, was reported saying at a news conference in Sri Lanka: "Mr. Negroponte has called it a $100 laptop—I think a more realistic title should be 'the $100 gadget'. The problem is that gadgets have not been successful. It turns out that what people are looking for is something that has the full functionality of a PC."

It is perhaps just a coincidence that Intel competitor AMD is contributing to the OLPC. Google, NewsCorp, RedHat, BrightStar and MIT are also project partners.

I recall working on 8086- and 8088-based "gadgets" when they were introduced in my school in 1983. We had three computers in a room built out of wood panels that partitioned us off from the rest of the basement. Computer classes were started on an experimental, extra-curricular basis. And we started simply by learning the binary numbering system: 0s and 1s, like a light switch you could throw on or off.

I don't think I created anything useful on those computers (we were taught BASIC after the first few days of binary numbers), but I do remember that this was that rare educational program where curiosity and play resulted in learning.

Another project with similar objectives is by Hole-in-the-Wall Education Ltd (HiWEL), a joint venture between NIIT Ltd and the International Finance Corp. The project started with NIIT's chief scientist setting up a computer with Internet connection in the wall that separated his office from a slum in New Delhi. This started a four-year research into the Minimally Invasive Education methodology, which has seen such initial success in delivering information to poor children that it has been rolled out as 23 "learning stations" or kiosks in rural India and more recently in Cambodia. Visit www.hole-in-the-wall.com for details on this project.

In both projects, the scale of the so-called "functionality" required for learning is secondary. To quote Negoroponte on OLPC, "When we make this available, it is an education project, not a laptop project. The digital divide is a learning divide—digital is the means through which children learn."

I urge you, as engineers working in Asia, to participate in bridging this divide. Contributing to projects like those above, starting your own or even sending me suggestions to share with the community are just few of many ways we can help.

Email the Editor

Back to top